Welcome to our Scout and Cellar Review!
Can you really combine your love for Wine and Earning Money with Scout and Cellar? That is what you may be thinking and that is what we will be answering in our Scout and Cellar review.
As it is an MLM company you may have questions as to whether it is a scam or maybe even a Pyramid Scheme, don’t worry we have got you covered in our review. We will be answering all the important questions you may have about this company and their business opportunity.
First off, it is great to see that you are doing your research before buying into a “seemingly good” product.
It is the best way to avoid scams and find only legitimate ways to make money online.
Just for transparency, we want to let you know that we are not associated with Scout and Cellar in any way.
So, you can relax. We are not here to pitch or sell you anything, we just want to reveal all you need to know about this business opportunity and whether it is the right one for you.
Let’s get started with a quick product overview…
Scout and Cellar Review Summary
Product Name: Scout and Cellar
Founder: Sarah Shadonix
Product Type: Wine MLM Company
Price: $249 + $99 website fee
Best For: Wine Lovers Who Are Good At Direct Selling
Summary: Scout and Cellar are a Wine MLM company. This means you will be selling their wine products to make money or through recruiting other people into selling their wine products.
Our main issue is that the MLM business model does not have a very high success rate, in fact 98% of people lose money with MLM. There are also a few other issues that have called into questions whether this is a good business opportunity, which we will detail in our review. Bottom line, not a great opportunity.
Rating: 40/100
Recommended? No
Table of Contents
What is Scout and Cellar?
Scout and Cellar is an MLM or Multi-Level Marketing company that focuses on Wine distribution.
It is pretty new, having only started out in 2017, hence us not being able to find them in the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website.
The founder of the company are called Sarah Shadonix. She used to practice commercial litigation before pursuing her passion for wine with this company.
Before you go any further, you need to consider where you are in the US before you can proceed with this MLM opportunity or not.
The US has some strict rules when it comes to shipping wine and this is dependent on the state you currently live in.
The following states do not allow wine to be shipped to your home, so if you were thinking about starting a direct selling company to make money with Scout and Cellar, this would be the first hurdle that may make this not a viable option (don’t worry we have a better opportunity for you, anyway)
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Delaware
- Kentucky
- Iowa
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
- Rhode Island
- South Dakota
- Utah
The Scout and Cellar Product Line
Scout and Cellar offer a range of Wine products and these include gift sets too. Prices seem pretty reasonable; I enjoy wine and the prices do not put me off. The main factor that tells you whether it is a good price or not would be the taste.
If the wine tastes good, people will pay more.
They also claim their wine is clean-crafter wine. Containing less of the additives you may find in other wines.
Here is a video where Sarah talks about their clean crafted wine:
P.S. This program helped us Create a 4-Figure Monthly Passive Income Stream. It’s FREE to get started and is only $49/month to go full-time!
How to Make Money with Scout and Cellar
As Scout and Cellar are an MLM company, this brings with it the usual ways of making money from MLM companies. These are:
- Retail Commission – selling the products to consumers and earning a commission
- Recruitment Commissions – recruit a team (downline) under you for bonuses, etc.
Because of this second route to earning money, many MLM’s get labelled as a Pyramid scheme. Let’s explore this now to see whether Scout and Cellar are one or not…
Is Scout and Cellar a Pyramid Scheme?
For starters, Pyramid Schemes are illegal, and Scout and Cellar are definitely not an illegal pyramid scheme.
But it doesn’t matter what the MLM is, their compensation plans do have similarities with a pyramid scheme, and they will never get away from that, so people will still continue to think they may be one.
To understand these similarities, first look at the graphic below:
This graphic describes what part of the commission structure at Scout and Cellar looks like. The part we are referring to is the part that rewards recruitment.
An illegal pyramid scheme is when you can only make money from recruiting new people into the scheme. They have no real product. In these schemes it’s guaranteed the system will collapse eventually and most people lost money.
Now the majority of people will lose money with Scout and Cellar, but they do have a real product that you can sell direct to customers without the need to recruit.
MLM’s can last a very long time and most people aren’t going to lose money from their collapse. The reason most people lose their money is because recruiting is very hard and selling direct to the customers is difficult too.
Success is Rare with MLM
MLM’s do not want you to know this, but it is not easy to make money with them! In fact, studies have shown that between 73% – 99% of people that join an MLM lose money instead of making any money.
There are many reasons why this is the case, but they all come down to the MLM model is flawed and hasn’t kept up with how people shop these days. You have to try and sell to friends and family, which is why 65% of people leave an MLM. This is because they feel it is too awkward trying to sell to friend and family.
We much prefer affiliate marketing to MLM, the graphic below show the differences and why we feel Affiliate Marketing is a much better proposition for someone looking to make money.
Haven't Made Your First $1 Yet?
Getting Started with Scout and Cellar
To get started with Scout and Cellar you first need to pay $249 for their business starter kit.
This kit includes:
- 6 bottle insulated wine carrier
- Wine Makers
- Pull taps corkscrew
- 5 ounce measured pouring spout
- The original vacu win wine saver
- 4 bottles of wine
- Business building materials
- Your personal Scout and Cellar website for a year
The website you get is included in the initial fee for the first year. You will be required to pay $99 every year after this point to keep it up and running.
Scout and Cellar Compensation Plan Explained...
We have yet to find an MLM that doesn’t have an overly complicated compensation plan. We are going to try and keep it as simple as we can as we explain it to you.
If you want to see the whole thing for yourself, then we found this video you can watch:
Or, here is a summary of the main points:
Affiliate Ranks
At Scout and Cellar, there are 6 different affiliate ranks and you move from one to the other by achieving certain goals, for which you will get bonuses for doing so.
Here are the ranks you can achieve:
- Consultant – this is your starting rank, which you get for signing up and paying the $249 fee.
- Second Consultant – to reach this level you must have a personal sales volume (PV) of $200 and downline sales of $500
- Executive Consultant – this rank requires a PV of $300 and downline sales of $800
- Associate Manager – to reach this level you will need a PV of $400 and $1500 in downline sales
- Senior Manager – a PV of $500 and downline sales of $3000
- Executive Manager – a PV of $600 and downline sales of $2000
There are additional requirements once you have achieved the 4th rank and it has to do with legs in a binary commission structure. But as most people do not get past the second rank, it is not necessary to go into too much detail with it.
If you are really interested, then watch that video above.
Retail Sales
This is the commission you can earn for selling the products direct to your customers. Here are the various commission you can earn based on your sales volume:
- Sales – $499 and below – 12% commissions
- Sales – $500 to $1499 – 15% commissions
- Sales – $1500 to $2999 – 20% commissions
- Sales – $3000+ – 25% commissions
These are decent commission rates, but you would have to sell a lot of wine to making a living from just the retail sales.
Residual (Recruitment) Commissions
This is where most of the money is made with MLM. Scout and Cellar is paid out in a binary structure which looks like this:
The amount you can make depends on your rankings, which will be dependent on how many people you can recruit and then how many sales they can make.
For example, a 2nd rank makes 3% on level 1 and a 6th rank makes 8% on level 1 and earns on levels past level 1.
Other Bonuses
There are a number of other bonuses that you can earn, these bonuses are smaller, and you shouldn’t worry about them too much. They come into play if you are able to start earning from sales and recruitment within Scout and Cellar.
Like I said, the video above will cover all aspects of the compensation plan.
What We Liked About Scout and Cellar
Here’s what we liked about Scout and Cellar:
#1 Good Products
From the reviews we found online, their products get a decent rating and that is major when it comes to wine. The concept of clean wine seems to be unique which could pull in your favour, especially if the wine tastes good.
#2 Good Prices
Many MLM’s seem to think it is ok to charge sky high prices, but this isn’t the case with Scout and Cellar. In fact, you could say the prices are a little low. But that would totally depend on the quality of the wine. But either way, the prices are good.
#3 Retail Commission Rates
The commission rates for selling the products is pretty good, the more you can sell the higher it goes up to 25%.
What We Didn't Like About Scout and Cellar
Here’s what we didn’t like about Scout and Cellar:
#1 Only Available in US, & Then Only in Certain States
First off, the business opportunity or even buying their wine is restricted to only the US at the moment.
But then there are restrictions depending on the state you live in. There are many states that do not allow the shipping of wine to your home address, which we listed above. So, this would make it difficult for you if you do live in those states.
#2 Low Success Rate
MLM’s have a really low success rate and many studies show that 99% of people end up losing money. This is not a great statistic and shows how difficult it is to succeed with the MLM business plan.
#3 No Income Disclosure
An income disclosure statement is an important document to show how successful their distributors are or not. But the fact they do not have one to show you, tells us that their distributors are not making any money.
The fact that you can just go on their website and buy wine and completely bypass their distributors shows you how hard it is for you to get people to buy from you.
#4 Have to Buy Through Scott and Cellar Website
Another thing that is awful is that you cannot take the orders yourself. The people you are selling to has to buy it through the Scout and Cellar website. They have to put that you are the consultant as part of the form. If they don’t do this, which is easy to do, you will lose any commissions.
Plus, how do you keep them as a customer as they can now just go to the website and you lose any future commissions.
Haven't Made Your First $1 Yet?
Can You Make Money with Scout and Cellar?
There is a chance that you could make this work. It would depend on your ability to sell direct to people without having to rely on pushing your family and friends into buying wine from you.
Just know that if you do decide to give this a go, it will be an extremely difficult business for you to succeed in.
If you are passionate about wine and have a list of people who would be interested in purchasing wine from you, then you could make a go of it.
But, in my opinion, I would rather just buy the wine and not worry about trying to sell it before I had tried the wine myself.
If you still want to explore direct selling, then I would suggest you learn the skills to be able to promote yourself online – see our guide that could help:
How to Increase MLM Sales – Effective Tips to Improve Network Marketing Success
Is Scout and Cellar a Scam?
Scout and Cellar isn’t a scam, their products are real and available without you having to sign up to their business opportunity.
They have a legitimate compensation plan. But that doesn’t make it a good business opportunity. The main reasons we say that is, without an income disclosure you cannot get a feel for how their other distributors are already getting on. Depending on your location, there are restrictions that you have to factor in, plus 99% of people end up losing money from MLM.
There is nothing to say that this company will be any different to any other MLM.
My Scout and Cellar Review
In our opinion, the MLM business model has too many restrictions and has a really low success rate. There is nothing to say that Scout and Cellar will be any different and the lack of an income disclosure statement makes it look like they don’t want to reveal the success rate of their business opportunity.
Their products may be good, but the fact people can go straight to their website and buy the products, meaning they do not actually need any distributors just shows they just want people to spread their name without paying for advertising. More than a chance to make people money.
If you are interested in wine and want to make money, you could promote it via Affiliate Marketing without the need of tying yourself to just one MLM company.
Learn how you could promote wine without the need to buy a fee with an MLM company. We make money from affiliate marketing, and there are so many advantages over MLM.
If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, click HERE.
How We Make Money Online
We are not a fan of MLM, not because it is illegal or that it isn’t profitable, but because it is really restrictive, and the expensive costs involved.
That is why we recommend Affiliate Marketing. It is our top recommended business model for anyone wanting to make money online.
The reasons are simple…
- You don’t have to recruit anyone to make money
- You have the freedom to promote any products or services you want and not get restricted by only promoting products from one MLM company
- NO face-to-face Selling is involved
- It is FREE to get started
In fact, with affiliate marketing we are close to earning a 4-figure monthly passive income stream. With the right help and guidance, you can too. Click HERE to find out about our top recommended training platform for learning affiliate marketing:
Thanks for checking out our Scout and Cellar review. If you have any questions, comments or any experience with this business, please write them in the comments section below. 😉
Affiliate Marketing Vs MLM – Which One Is Best Option For You?
Financial Education Services Review – Legit MLM or Pyramid Scheme?
Scout and Cellar
$249 + $99 Website Fee
Pros
- Good Products
- Good Prices
- Retail Commission Rates
Cons
- Only Available in US, & Then Only in Certain States
- Low Success Rate
- No Income Disclosure
- Have to Buy Through Scout and Cellar Website
It seems like anyone who loves wine and loves selling would probably like Scout & Cellar. But you probably have to get out there and hustle your butt off to get anywhere.
The problem with MLMs (imo) is that the only way you become successful is by selling the business, not the product. And selling and MLM is WAY harder than selling a bottle of wine!
I agree that affiliate marketing is a better way to go – you have just as much control over your own success but you can focus on the product instead of the business (if you so choose).
Hey Kat,
I totally agree with you. Recruitment is the way to succeed in MLM, but it is much more difficult to do than people think. Recruiting anyone is not going to help you, you need to recruit people who are good at selling and recruiting other people.
Selling a business is much harder than promoting a product and that is why affiliate marketing is much more successful and achievable for beginners…
Definitely the right direction for most people. With the support of a training program like Wealthy Affiliate, it is a reality for many people!!
All the best
John
Thanks for this review of Scout and Cellar. I have never been a big fan of any MLM business model after my wife was involved in one years ago. You are absolutely right to say that most people lose money rather than make any kind of profit unless you are at the top of that pyramid. Even if the wines are good I am going to have to take a hard pass one this one. Thanks again!
Hey Steve,
thanks for checking out our review. The MLM business opportunity requires a certain skill set, it requires the ability to sell and recruit. But promoting the business opportunity, is much harder than any MLM makes out. This is why so many people get caught out as they think it is like their own little business, but the requirements and difficulty to bring others in make most end up losing money or end up in debt.
Our preference is to point people towards Affiliate Marketing, as the learning curve is much kinder, you get much more support (with places like Wealthy Affiliate) and the start up costs are practically minimal in comparison.
For the right individual, MLM has it’s place but they still rely on out-dated marketing techniques and as people’s shopping habits change, they are being left behind…
All the best
John