Scentsational Soaps & Candles

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Scentsational Soaps & Candles Builds a Scalable, Flexible Workforce with Veryable

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Scentsational Soaps & Candles is a family owned and operated manufacturer based in Venice, Florida. The company produces candles under its own brand and supplies major national retailers including TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, private label partners, and independent boutiques across the country.

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Like many consumer goods manufacturers, Scentsational operates in pronounced seasonal cycles. Demand begins ramping in early summer and accelerates through the fall holiday season. For nearly five months, production runs at sustained peak levels. After Thanksgiving, volume drops sharply.

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That variability created a structural workforce challenge. Hiring aggressively for peak season increased fixed cost exposure. Hiring conservatively risked missed orders and strained production. Each year, the company relied on seasonal hires and post-holiday layoffs to rebalance headcount.

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“We were having to fire and hire people in as seasonal employees, and that's really difficult to do.”

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Beyond the operational strain, the cycle carried cultural consequences.

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“The worst part of my job is laying somebody off. Telling somebody that I don't have work to provide you. I can't support your home life or your livelihood and lay somebody off. That is the worst day.”

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Scentsational needed a way to scale capacity during peak months without permanently expanding its fixed workforce.

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In 2022, the company began building a flexible Labor Pool through Veryable.

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Real-Time Flexibility for Unpredictable Demand

Retail buying patterns are not always predictable. Large customers operate on compressed lead times, requiring production to respond immediately to new purchase orders.

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“We have a 10 day lead time with our largest manufacturer. That means from the day the PO is placed, the product shipping in 10 days.”

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Under a traditional hiring model, onboarding timelines did not align with order velocity.

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“Onboarding can take weeks to get folks in here, and we didn't have that flexibility before Veryable.”

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Veryable introduced the ability to post work as needed and deploy trained Operators quickly. Within weeks, leadership saw the difference.

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“I would say after about the first couple of weeks, I was like, wow, we can really build a business and scale up our production quickly and efficiently with this app.”

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In one instance, a missed production line threatened an order that needed to ship the following Monday. While traveling out of state, Cranmer posted the shifts, selected proven Operators from her Labor Pool, and built a full roster remotely.

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“I was in Chicago at the time, so I hopped on Veryable, posted out the positions, knew the folks that were applying and knew how great they would be and was able to create a roster from a whole different state. We were able to save that PO and make the customer really happy at the end of the day.”

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The company could now match labor speed to customer speed.

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Building a Repeatable Labor Pool

Rather than using Veryable as occasional overflow labor, Scentsational intentionally developed a repeatable Labor Pool aligned to specific positions.

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“Developing a labor pool is really important because you can then take the folks that you know get to know their skill sets a little bit and then realize I can put these people in my labor pool for this exact position.”

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Over time, leadership identified skilled Operators and reposted roles strategically.

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“And know when I go to repost that position. I'm already getting qualified individuals who I know and trust that have been here multiple times.”

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This shifted workforce management from reactive hiring to controlled capacity planning. Each weekend, the upcoming production schedule is reviewed, open shifts are filled, and the week is locked in advance.

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“The best thing about Veryable is that I can take a look at the entire production schedule over the weekend and plan out the entire week and really never go back to check it again.”

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The Labor Pool began functioning as a flexible extension of the core workforce.

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Improving Productivity While Controlling Payroll

Scentsational closely monitors payroll as a percentage of sales, targeting under 15 percent each payroll period. Historically, peak season required significant overtime from full time employees, leading to fatigue and quality issues.

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“When prior to that, we would see fatigue, we would see quality control issues, we would see production start to lack.”

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By layering in flexible Operators during high-volume months, the company reduced strain on its core team while maintaining output.

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“The good thing about it is we did see a 28% uptick in productivity across the board.”

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“Quality control has almost tripled since Veryable.”

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After building a labor pool, payroll as a percentage of sales declined by 15 percent compared to the previous year, even after surviving the busiest season.

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“I had no idea how effective it would be until we survived our busiest season and our payroll was 15% less than it was the year before.”

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Supporting Growth While Minimizing Fixed Cost Exposure

Operational stability created new opportunity. With scalable capacity in place, Scentsational onboarded a new customer that placed 1.2 million units within six months.

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“Would not have been able to take on that customer without the Veryable labor pool.”

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The annual layoff cycle also changed. Instead of reducing full time staff when demand slowed, leadership scaled back posted shifts while maintaining workforce continuity.

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“That didn't happen this year.”

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The result is a more agile labor model. Capacity increases when production demands it and contracts when it does not, without destabilizing the core team.

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A More Flexible Labor Model

By building a Labor Pool , Scentsational has created a workforce model that aligns labor to real time demand, protects full time employees from burnout, reduces seasonal layoffs, improves productivity and quality, controls payroll relative to sales, and supports new customer growth.

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For Cranmer, the outcome is clear.

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“If I were to tell anybody about Veryable, I would say, try it. It's gonna cut down your labor costs. It's gonna save your payroll. It's gonna increase efficiency. It has been an absolute lifesaver in our business.”