Seeing lots of confusion in the comments so I wanted to clear things up.

This was not a scam or a "scheme."

Consider these points:

• These strategies have been used for decades by all your favorite retailers (Target, Walmart, etc.). The only difference here is that the marketing channel is new (social media instead of newspaper ads).
• Target will sell you a similar swimsuit for $40. These guys got 50,000 swimsuits into the hands of customers for $12 each. The customers got a discount, the business made a profit for their work. It was a win-win.
• Finally, please note that Summer’s comment above was *not* referring to the company in question here. As we cleared up in the replies, her experience was with a different company, and not Sunny Co.

What’s throwing people off is the transparency behind the numbers, which has never been this accessible before.

The reality is that this is standard business and has been for a long time. And now it's being brought into e-commerce.