Scentsy

Scentsy was founded by Kara Egan and her sister-in-law Colette Gunnell in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2003.[4][5] At a small business event in 2004, they met Orville Thompson, a struggling entrepreneur who had previously started several unprofitable business ventures.[6] Thompson took an interest in the pair's wick-less candle company and a few months later, he and his wife Heidi Thompson purchased the company from Egan and Gunnell.[5][6][7] The Thompsons moved the company's headquarters to Meridian, Idaho and on July 1, 2004 they re-launched Scentsy using a multi-level marketing distribution model.[5][8][9]

Marketing materials for Scentsy were created by a Layton, Utah-based graphic design company, ScentsySuccess (an authorized division of Ann Dalton Design Inc.). ScentsySuccess was acquired by Scentsy in 2008, at which time they moved to a new distribution centre and showroom in Layton.[10]

In 2009, the company expanded into Canada and in 2011, the company expanded into the United Kingdom and Germany.[11] In 2012, the company had over 170,000 active independent consultants.[12] At the end of 2015, this number had fallen to 95,891.[13] Co-founder Kara Egan remained with the company as a consultant and had over 42,000 down line consultants as of 2012.[12][4]

In 2017 the company reported over $450 million in annual sales, putting it as number 44 on Direct Selling News' list of the top direct selling companies in the world.[14][15] It was also on the Forbes magazine 2011 list of America's 100 Most Promising Companies and the 2018 list of America’s Best Midsize Employers.[8][14]

Under the multi-level marketing (MLM) model used by Scentsy, all products are sold exclusively through independent consultants, with no retail sales.[12] Consultants can also receive a portion of the sales of any new consultants that they recruit.[16] In a 2011 interview, CEO Orville Thompson said that they chose a direct selling model because their wickless candles were "an experiential product" that were best showcased in home-based parties and that MLM distributing allowed them to offer a larger selection of products than was possible to offer in the limited space of a retail store.[7]

Scentsy has been criticized for its heavy recruitment of American military spouses, whose families' frequent moves mean they often have trouble finding consistent employment.[17][18][19] The military humor site Duffel Blog satirized this practice by announcing the creation of SCENTCOM, "focused on unifying efforts of highly scented products sold on military bases through 'consultants.'" [20]

According to its 2015 income disclosure statement,[13] about 66,000 or 65% of active Scentsy consultants receive an average of $463.34 per year, before expenses. The top 200 or about 0.2% consultants, earned an average of $113,363.98, with the highest income earner making nearly 1 million dollars.[21] According to a military.com article, it takes most consultants over four years to earn a yearly income equivalent to working three and a half hours per week at minimum wage, not counting business expenses.[17] The blog Bottlesoup calculates that a consultant will have to sell 639 Scentsy products per month in order to earn the equivalent of a full-time, minimum wage job.[22] An analysis by The Finance Guy blog, claims that 99.45% of Scentsy consultants were not able to earn a full-time income.[3]

Scentsy was profiled in a study about the rhetoric used by companies in the 'direct selling industry'.[23] Scentsy's recruitment material was noted to emphasize personal agency within the context of Bormann's fantasy theme analysis and convergence theory.

• List of multi-level marketing companies

• Official website