About This Site

consumerdirectmarketing.org is a reference resource on the Consumer Direct Marketing business model and the adjacent distribution structures that surround it: traditional direct sales, multi-level marketing, affiliate marketing, membership commerce, and the modern creator economy.

The site exists to consolidate, in one accessible place, structural information about how these distribution models actually work — at the level of compensation mechanics, customer ownership, inventory flow, and regulatory classification. Content is organized into pillar explainers that define each model, brand profiles documenting how individual firms operate, founder profiles, head-to-head structural comparisons that apply a consistent set of dimensions, frequently asked questions, and analytical articles that extend the reference base as the industry evolves.

Research Methodology

Sourcing hierarchy

Sources are used in roughly the following order of priority: court decisions, regulatory filings issued by the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission, and statutory text; peer-reviewed academic literature; company-published documents including compensation plans, annual reports, and governance disclosures; industry-body publications with disclosed methodology; and journalism from outlets with published editorial standards.

Comparative framework

Comparisons between distribution models apply the structural test articulated in Vander Nat & Keep (2002) and operationalized in subsequent FTC enforcement actions: does compensation flow primarily from recruitment of new participants, or from the verified sale of products to end consumers? This question is applied consistently across the site, regardless of how a given firm labels its own model. Where regulators, academics, and the firms themselves disagree on classification, the disagreement is presented and the reader is left to draw their own conclusion.

Citations

Every factual claim material to an argument is referenced to its source. Citations appear at the end of each page so the body remains readable and the underlying evidence is one click away.

Corrections

Factual errors identified after publication are corrected with a dated note appended to the affected page.

Scope

Topics in scope include distribution model structure, comparative analysis between models, regulatory framework, historical development, related academic literature, and structural similarities to modern affiliate and creator commerce.