Ding dong, Avon calling … Britain. The cosmetics company is moving its corporate headquarters from the US to Britain 130 years after it was founded in New York.

The company, which sells products door to door through almost six million agents, said it would transfer its head office to the UK over time after selling its North American business. It will keep its operations in Suffern and Rye in New York state and maintain its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

The move is part of a restructuring plan that also involves cutting 2,500 jobs out of its worldwide workforce of 28,300. The company aims to save $350m in costs over the next three years.

Avon said: “The company will reduce corporate infrastructure and will transition, over time, the location of Avon’s corporate headquarters to the United Kingdom, where the company has significant commercial operations. To realise benefits of scale, core enterprise functions will be located in the United Kingdom with direct connection to the operations throughout the world.”

Avon was founded in 1886 by David McConnell, a travelling book salesman, who found female customers more interested in the beauty product he offered them as a perk. McConnell recruited women to act as sales agents for the products he mixed from an office in New York.

The company expanded to sell perfume, makeup, jewellery and accessories in 70 countries. Its “Ding dong, Avon calling” advertising campaign ran for 13 years from 1954, making it one of the world’s longest-running ad campaigns.

Avon has struggled in recent years and sold its North American business to Cerberus Capital, the private equity firm, in December after four years of falling sales, keeping a minority stake. The company’s UK website says six million British women see an Avon brochure every three weeks.