Tupperware Demonstrator

Jennifer Loicht

Humble plastic containers provide extra income and some fun for demonstrator Mike Allen.

If you think they have been replaced by Botox parties in this youth-obsessed age, think again – Tupperware parties are still the rage.

Mike Allen says he is one of myriad demonstrators selling the famous Australian storage products at parties.

“There are hundreds of [demonstrators],” Allen says. “They’re everywhere. They come from all walks of life.”

“I belong to a unit and all of us go to a dealership – mine is at East Hills and in that there are 16 managers, who each have up to 20 people under them.”

Allen, who also runs a cleaning business, got into the Tupperware game to finance his long-time habit for the product.

“I love Tupperware,” he says.

“I have everything in the catalogue at home and because I sell it, I get it at a lower rate. I started selling it so I could buy it [cheaper] for myself.”

Allen’s other business only leaves him time to do a few parties a week – taking up about 20 hours in total – but he says demonstrators can do as many as suits.

“It’s about three hours work per party and you get 20 per cent of the takings so if you take $1000 you make $200 – it’s quite good,” he says.

“There’s no real preparation. You just have to make sure you have your kit ready.

“When you join, you get given a kit and you pay that off in your first year. It’s full of stuff that you can show people how to use.

“You just set it up as a display and then talk about the different products.

“When you get to the party you spend about 20 minutes setting up and then the demonstration usually goes for about two hours – depending on what the group’s like and how much they want to know.

 “It takes about half an hour to pack up and when you get home you put the order through. The order gets sent back to me, I pack it and get it back to the host. [This adds] another couple of hours to a job – so I probably spend about 20 hours a week on it.”

For Allen, hosting the parties is usually more about pleasure than business.

“If [my partner and I] weren’t running the business, I’d probably do more Tupperware parties – it’s a lot of fun,” he says.

Allen says the products appeal to people from all walks of life.

“I did a whole heap of parties last year for navy people,” he says.

“They love Tupperware. Because they’re away a lot, they bought a lot of the Modular Mates which you [can] use for storing dried food products and it keeps weevils out.”