Direct selling party plans: communal sharing in the Systems of Provision

ABSTRACT Wine producers have built their businesses on the concept of sharing, typically explored in the context of the communal consumption of wine among consumers. In this paper, we offer an often-overlooked area of the supply chain that can play an important role in the communal consumption of wine, that of direct selling companies utilizing the party plan sales strategy. By breaking down the production-consumption network through the Systems of Provision (SoP) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this research explores the supply chain in influencing consumption. The direct selling party plan allows for active engagement in the production-consumption network and is explored in this research as a material artifact of the communal wine consumption experience. An analysis of the 10Cs categorization of the SoP is conducted within two direct selling wine companies, Traveling Vineyard and WineShop at Home. The analysis expands an often fragmented view of communal sharing (usually viewed through the lens of end users) to include more actors and how these direct selling actor’s roles can impact the future of the production-consumption social network in the wine marketplace.