Door-to-door deliberations At-home sales continue — and remain profitable — in digital era By: Malak Abas Posted: 5:36 PM CST Monday, Feb. 5, 2024

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This article was published 05/02/2024 (953 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brittany Dales had just got her one-year-old to sleep and the house was quiet.

That is, until two door-to-door salespeople, ignoring a prominent sign asking that solicitors not knock, banged on the door of her Crestview home.

Then they rang the doorbell. Twice.

Inside, the chaos began almost immediately. The family pet, a rescue named Kaos that Dales describes as a “very large dog with a very deep bark,” began barking and their son began to wail. Dales’ husband, frustrated, scooped up the tot and ran to the front door to yell at the solicitors to leave, before slamming the door.

The lifelong Winnipeggers moved from a quiet area to a busier street more than a year ago, and with it came an increase in solicitations from pedlars, members of religious groups and political candidates.

Dales said she is tired of the random visits from strangers, which leave her feeling unsafe.

“If I’m home alone, or home alone with my baby, I’m not as inclined to answer the door if I can’t see who it is, just for safety precautions,” she said.

After repeated visits during the late summer-early fall provincial election campaign, the family bought a sign to discourage door-knockers that has helped, but not eliminated the problem.

“I know it’s their job to go door to door. It’s a little outdated, but whatever,” she says.

“But just look and see — if you can see that there’s a sign on the door, take a look at what it says. If it says, ‘Please don’t knock,’ then just don’t.”

While the rise of digital methods to reach customers, voters and those seeking religion has put a damper on the door-to-door sales pitch, the practice has yet to fully fade away — so much so that legislation on direct sales was being introduced as recently as 2020 when the province banned door-to-door sales of furnaces, air conditioners and other household systems through an amendment to the Consumer Protection Act.

The law puts restrictions on that commerce, including requiring a 10-day cancellation period for any sale, and the licensing of direct sales agencies includes a required paid bond, which can be used if a customer makes a claim to recoup unfair losses.

“But just look and see — if you can see that there’s a sign on the door, take a look at what it says. If it says, ‘Please don’t knock,’ then just don’t”–Brittany Dales

Those restrictions don’t mean the process hasn’t remained profitable for some industries. Telecommunications companies, including Bell MTS and Telus, continue to send salespeople door to door in search of customers.

A steady stream of the customer base at Tower Security Systems, a family business operating out of East St. Paul, is made up of people who were previously pressured into buying an expensive, long-term security system agreement at their front door.

A system purchased on the doorstep often includes an excessive monthly fee, and some companies will even use an encrypted system that can’t be used or repaired by different provider in the future.

Sometimes, the company is difficult or impossible to reach after the sale, Tower Security co-founder Reg Siemens says.

That’s when customers come to him seeking a whole new setup.

“We ended up with a lot of our customers where they would finally, to get rid of these people, sign the agreement. And then within minutes, (the company) would come in and replace all of their hardware,” Siemens says.

“And even when the customer realized, ‘OK, this is probably a scam, but I’ll look it up after they’re gone,’ they are now stuck with the fact that their system that was working isn’t anymore. And so then they’d call us.”

While it’s happening less frequently than it was even a decade ago, it still happens. Siemens said he will sit down with those customers and ask what about the pitch intrigued them; he’ll try to meet their needs from there. What he often hears is that the sales are done impulsively in a high-pressure setting.

Siemens called it “borderline an unethical situation” he would like to see the Consumer Protection Act amended to address.

“What I find is it’s profitable for a short period of time. Usually what we see is different players enter the industry, go nuts and do this for a while, and then they sell off,” he says.

“And then it takes another company a year or two later to start it over again.”

Not every solicitor is knocking on your door looking for a sale. Some are looking for a vote.

Like sales, door-to-door canvassing has declined in recent years as electronic data collection (survey research and polling are now exclusively done over the phone or online) increased in popularity, but it remained a part of the recent campaign period, says Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor in political studies at the University of Manitoba.

“It gives a human face to the campaign, and there are people who volunteer, so you want to use your volunteers in a way that helps the campaign,” he says.

Door-knocking remains particularly useful in swing areas, and campaign offices will collect data that shows where people are more likely to be swayed by a visit from a candidate, Adams says.

The process remains a valuable tool, one Adams doesn’t foresee being removed from political parties’ repertoire any time soon.

“It’s important for the candidate to learn what people are saying, it’s important for voters to get a sense that this candidate really cares about the neighbourhood and hearing what people at the door have to say.”

Not every organization going door to door considers itself a solicitor.

“It’s important for the candidate to learn what people are saying, it’s important for voters to get a sense that this candidate really cares about the neighbourhood and hearing what people at the door have to say”–Christopher Adams

Manitoba’s 3,607 Jehovah’s Witnesses, a denomination of Christianity, are tasked with spending time at least once a week “witnessing” — or preaching the word of God — but don’t consider themselves solicitors because they’re not seeking donations, sales or votes.

While the faith group has long approached people that way, its approach has shifted with the times, said Prairie spokesperson Joel Ramcharan.

“Before, we would go with, maybe, a presentation or a thought in mind; now we’re trying to be more adaptable to what people want to talk about,” he says.

It may be working. Jehovah’s Witnesses put their weekly door-to-door visits on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic but have started again, and Ramcharan said there has been a spike in interest.

“In Winnipeg, what we have been finding is that people really do want to talk,” he says.

“They were isolated for such a long period of time, and we’re just finding people want to talk about a variety of different subjects.”

malak.abas@winnipegfreepress.com