Stay-at-Home Moms Built Tupperware. Working Women Killed It.

Tupperware’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week prompted many of us to do a double-take. I can show you how great and wonderful having Tupperware in your life is.’ And of course it became part of the American fabric.” Direct selling was a precursor to affiliate marketing, where websites get commissions for click-throughs that lead to sales. The company said in its bankruptcy filing that direct selling still drove more than 90 percent of its sales in 2023, with about 465,000 sellers, mostly women, comprising the Tupperware sales force. As the company’s chief restructuring officer explains in the bankruptcy filing: “The company’s focus on its direct sales model ultimately came at the cost of developing an omnichannel strategy, or even modern e-commerce infrastructure to support its Sales Force.” How bad was Tupperware’s infrastructure to sell products online? Most people, I think, still have a positive association with the name, and Tupperware’s problem is that the company doesn’t actually get paid when someone offhandedly refers to their Rubbermaid or OXO container as “Tupperware.” Perhaps, one day, they could be one and the same.