So what do you think of door-to-door salesmen?

[RKillian]

I've been looking up some information compiled on door-to-door soliciation for petitions and I was wondering what the general public thinks about the subject. It would be very helpful if you could include a general location (state, province, etc) along with your comments.

As for my view on it? It's been about 10 years since anyone came to the door selling anything. Do Jehovah's Witnesses really exist or are they a suburban legend? :P

I think it'd be neat to have someone occasionally try to sell a product, especially those for a niche market. Then again, if they visited everyday during dinner like the phone company does, I might rethink it a little. I don't think I'd really begrudge anyone a signature on their petition though. Oh, this is Pennsylvania by the way.

And now for the obligatory bad encounter story! We had a regular salesman who peddled specialty items in the neighborhood. It was actually a fairly pleasant arrangement. Then one time he sold us something for the cats that caused cancer in children and pets. He wouldn't refund the money for the unused product or something, and I guess didn't survive the verbal beating he got as a result since he never came back after that.

What about you guys?

[Jaguar]

I haven't seen one in about 6 years (and that was a Jehovah's Witness). My dad went out there and lectured him for five hours (he's a minister.)
I think they've all decided to quit walking and start talking--meaning they've all become telemarketers.

[Rune]

I live in a small village in the south west UK and we have the Jehovah's Witnesses calling up on a recruitment drive about once every 4 to 6 months. There are only about 300 people in the village and 75% of these are old age pensionners and Church of England so it always surprises me that they even bother ... but there again maybe its me they're after in which case so far the score is Rune sixteen, JW's 0. Somehow I'm always the only one in the house when they call, i don't actually mind them and I'm always friendly because I try to be tolerant and understanding of all peoples faiths even when its not reciprocated, I think that lots of people aren't so welcoming though and usually invite them to go forth and multiply or words to that effect.

Occasionally we also get door to door salesmen trying to sell stuff like floor dusters, mops, brushes etc, I think its something like the 'betterclean' company, these guys are actually more annoying than the religious ones because they whine and pester and get shirty if you say you're not interested, if I see one coming along I don't answer the door.

The only other thing is 'maildrop' selling ie catalogues for Avon, Gadgetshop, Iceland, local charities etc which plop through the letterbox anonymously and then a week later the salesperson turns up for your order. My mother in law lives in the south and gets lots of 'cold callers' trying to sell double glazing or to tarmac your driveway on the cheap (and do a crap job of it)

On the whole though we don't get too many of the door to door types, back when I was little in the early 70's and living in a small town we had many calling though, vacuum salesmen, brush salesmen, fish salesman, bread, cakes, a knife grinder on his bicycle, a rag n bone man with his horse and cart and even gypies who used to sell you clothes pegs & baskets or plants they had dug up from someone else's back yard. Actually now I think back I miss those days.

[MrBananagrabber]

Occasionally a Jehovah's Witness or two comes to the door, but I've never had a salesmen. It's a bit annoying, but after politely telling them I wasn't interested they just handed me a pamphlet and said goodbye. I don't think it's anything horrible, but if it was the same people coming over and over, I'd get quite pissed.

[Tienshin]

My take on door to door solicitation:

I went door to door working for a Environmental group as a summer job once. Typically a person could do about 80 houses a day in the 3 or 4 hours of time we had. Most ususal breakdown 75 "No's" 3 "Yes's" and 2 "Get off my porch before I effin kill you's" I repeated this monday thru friday for 11 weeks.

Now, the other day a young woman who works for the same group came up to my door. I had just gotten home from work, it was 95 degrees outside and 110 inside it seemed like. So, while I am trying to cook without dropping sweat into my food I notice the girl standing there, and then I see the CLIPBOARD. And think "Oh god no...a young idealist who wants my money!" Having been on the other side of the door I should have been nicer, but sometimes you just don't want to be bothered by someone shilling crap, with some stiff prepared speach. I did cave since I know this organization works on a quota system (85 bucks a day) and quickly fires people who can't hack it. But now I'm on thier list, they send me stupid newsletters, and I am certain they will send another person in six months to check in, and ask for more money.

Thats when I will give some poor kid the "Get off my porch before I effin kill you" routine.

[RKillian]

The rate is really _that_ bad? Darn.

I guess I could say what this was for. We've all seen those online petitions, right? Put regular Star Wars on DVD, bring back Invader Zim, etc. Well, I thought about it one day and emailed the guy who has the main "re-air the GoBots" petition. He told me that he hadn't gotten as many signatures as he wanted yet, so the thing never got emailed to the company. That really didn't sit too well with me.

I've been seriously planning a similar campaign to get the show released on DVD. This was after the WB empire refused a bid to outright buy the distribution rights for a few episodes. Right now, I'm looking into attending, as a dealer, Botcon 2004 or OTFCC 2004 to collect signatures and promote this with some prototypes. After thinking about this awhile, and researching the numbers, I concluded that maybe I could do something more effective locally.

The premise was to take off a few days or weekends here and there and go through the town getting people to sign this form saying they'd support a release. I, naive as it sounds, figured it was more a matter of getting through the 10,000 people in town. It's not like I'm trying to legalize heroin or something. Maybe they'd (execs) see that number multiplied across the country and get the point. Then people started saying I could get arrested or assaulted...which is definitely not the outcome I want.

So I mean, do you think it's worth the time and effort? Not from a standpoint of how much I want the goal to be acheived, but more like how effective an action it would be.

[The Black Mage]

Selling doors, door-to-door.

[rodney]

I think they've all decided to quit walking and start talking--meaning they've all become telemarketers.

No we haven't. Nearly 6.5 million going door to door every month, worldwide. And since Jehovah's Witnesses don't sell anything, any rules about door-to-door solicitations don't apply. At least that's what the US Supreme Court says.

[Daniel P]

I haven't had a salesmen since I moved. As for other solicitators, the Mormons visited us once (with a lot of false information about my family that they were using to lure us to the church), but that was at least a year ago. The Jehovah's Witnesses last visited us on Christmas day. My mom has politely told solicitators to not come back, but it doesn't seem to work. :yawn:

[rodney]

If you tell the Witnessses not to come back, they won't. At least for 2-3 years, and that's because sometimes people move, or their beliefs change. When that infrequent visit happens, just kindly say that your beliefs are the same, and you haven't changed your mind, you won't hear from anyone for another couple of years.

Everyone has horror stories about the Witnesses, but as a Witness myself, I can assure you that it's not supposed to work that way. Rude behavior when going to someone's home (or in general) is not promoted or condoned.