Yes, Avon has plenty of proprietary products, but we live in a copycat world where online retailers with lean overhead can undersell Avon when it comes to main-stream beauty-care products." Products are easily imitable, but intangibles, such as 125 years of direct-selling experience, are much harder to match. This style of product offering and delivery brings value to customers in ways that online and bricks-and-mortar stores cannot. Avon's door-to-door, direct selling model allows customers to sample and buy cosmetics from the convenience of their homes. Unfortunately, the Internet has reduced the amount of value this model creates for today's customers. Moreover, online warehouses and drugstores that can keep their costs and prices low by reducing overhead are offering lower-priced beauty products, forcing Avon to reevaluate its own costs and price structures. "We have to continue to look at how we make direct selling more modern in some ways," including using technology to amplify the social connections forged by the representatives.