Sell The Perfume You Have Made, Part I:
Finding A Viable Marketing Model:
Fantasy vs. Reality

What is the reality of an individual marketing a new fragrance they have made? I am not thinking of the person who comes to me saying "I have this wonderful idea for a fragrance — how do I make money with it?" That case is hopeless. No, I am talking about the person who, one way or another, really has made their own perfume and has given samples of it to friends and perhaps even strangers to test their reactions. This is a person who is seriously committed to perfume and it is for this person that these articles were written.

The dream, at this point, is to get the perfume into stores — large stores or smaller stores, depending on the perfume maker's ambitions. This, so goes the fantasy, will be the key making money. (This dream has been shared with me by quite a number of level headed, intelligent, perfume makers.)

The problem with this "marketing model," if you want to call it that, is that, in a sense, a store is simply a media, like a magazine, like the internet, like an infomercial on TV. Having your perfume in a store is no more likely to generate sales than having it in your attic — unless you are doing something to drive people into the store to buy your perfume, or have created a store display for your perfume that is so compelling that it alone can make sales for you.

Here's a dose of reality on how
perfume is sold in stores

Are you still unconvinced that having your perfume in a store is no more likely to get sales for it than having it in your attic? Think for a moment about stores — stores of different sizes. Let's start with a department store. Here, of course, you will find fragrances from the large marketers of perfume — the "prestige" brands, as they are called in the trade: Estee Lauder (including Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, DKNY, etc.), L'Oreal (Ralph Lauren), LVMH (Guerlain, Givenchy), Puig (Nina Ricci), Coty's Lancaster Division (Calvin Klein, Jennifer Lopez), etc. But do you think these WELL KNOWN fragrances just sell themselves? Take a closer look!

Consider how familiar you are with these names. These companies spend millions of dollars on advertising. You see their ads in all the fashion magazines as well as some general interest magazines, for both men and women.

Then what do they do? They insert SAMPLES of their perfume into some of these magazines, so that readers can "try" the fragrances without having to go to the store!

But there's yet more. In the course of events, when you go to the store — perhaps to buy a fall outfit — the first merchandise you encounter at the store's main entrance is ... cosmetics and fragrance!

You didn't come into the store to buy a perfume but now, right in front of you, is a tester bottle of a fragrance you already "tried" in the magazine. One little squirt is harmless — and free. But what happens when you take that little squirt? A sales lady rushes to your side and offers you a little squirt of another fragrance ... one that gives her a higher commission!

At this point you haven't noticed yet that there are more sales people at the fragrance and cosmetics counters than you'll find anywhere else in the store. They are eager to charm and flatter you — and complete a sale. Elsewhere in the same store you may have to search to find an attended cash register.

If you succumb to the sales lady's onslaught and bought almost anything, you may find your bag being stuffed with additional goodies — samples of fragrances you might want to buy the next time you come into the store.

Indeed, for the big companies, the ones whose names we all know, selling perfume in a department store is not a passive exercise. Great efforts are made to sell perfume. Why? Because perfume, when sold effectively, is very, very profitable.

The drug store approach

Drug store chains also carry perfume. Usually the perfume they carry will be a step or two down from the "prestige" brands, yet the companies selling through drug stores are also very large and clearly make a nice profit on perfume.

But in drug stores the perfume is usually locked behind a glass door. Sometimes tester bottles are available but often they are not refreshed very frequently. And, in drug stores, no sales lady will offer to help you. You'll have to ASK for any help and hope you will get it. So how do they make sales?

The great selling weapon of the drug stores is the "free standing insert" (FSI). These are the colorful, printed sheets distributed with your Sunday newspaper, or your local penny saver, or just dropped by your door in a bundle. They advertise the "specials" of the week. Usually there will be a wide range of products advertised, none of which will be drugs. One product category that will almost always be included is ... "cosmetics and fragrance" — perfume!

But what does the FSI say about a perfume? That it will bring you romance? That it will make him desire you? That you will be considered a competent professional woman (or good mother) it you wear it? Of course not! These ads are about saving money! "Buy it now, from us, and save!"

The drug store chain relies on the manufacturer to make you WANT a particular perfume. They won't stock it unless the manufacturer has done its work for the product. Your product doesn't get into the store's inventory unless they are sure that it will blow out the doors. There are no "maybes" in this business.

In spite of the lack of convenience in making a drug store perfume purchase (you have to find someone to unlock the cabinet just to look closely at the package!), drug stores sell lots of perfume. They also are famous for offering step-down brands next to famous brands. Don't want to pay for Calvin Klein? What about this nice XYZ perfume? You've never heard of it but it only costs half as much!

Drug stores have certain advantages over department stores in perfume sales. The department store has a close relationship with the manufacturer, who often provides or trains the people at the sales counters. Department stores pay a "normal" wholesale price for their inventory.

Drug stores obtain their inventory through a wide variety of mechanisms. Often their products do not come directly from the manufacturer but from a third party who can sell to them at a lower price than what the manufacturer would charge them. (In reality, the manufacturer may choose NOT to sell at all to a drug chain!)

This is called "grey market" and it involves products which the manufacturer sold for export but, instead, they come back to the U.S. A. and into the drug store. (In reality they may never have left the country.) The drug store is now selling in competition with the manufacturer's "authorized" outlets, often at a lower price.

So first of all, the drug store is often buying perfume for less than what a department store would pay for the same brand. Now consider store traffic. For each time you go to a department store it's likely that you've shopped in a drug store about ten times. Anyone on several medications (and today that is almost everyone!) visits a drug store regularly. Department stores don't get quite so many visits.

So drug stores like perfume because they can sell it cheap and buy it cheaper, they tend to have high traffic in individual stores and the people who come into their stores have seen both their free standing inserts AND the manufacturer's advertising. Perhaps they have even tried samples, in a magazine or ... in a department store!

Now about that store your friend owns...

So department stores and drug stores are for big, aggressive businesses with lots of money to spend on advertising and lots of savvy in wheeling and dealing. But what about that nice gift store or crafts store your friend owns? Here you have your best chance of getting your perfume taken on by the store (although you might have to give it to them on consignment — meaning you only get paid when and if it sells.) The sad fact is that you have no more chance of making sales in your friend's store than you would in a department store or drug store — unless you, yourself, promote your perfume. The store only acts as a place where the customer can pick it up. YOU must convince people to go there and buy it. (The exception, as noted above, is when you're able to create such a fantastic store display that your display COMPELLS people to buy your product.)

So where does that leave you, the maker of perfume? If having your perfume available in a store — any store — isn't the answer to being able to sell it, what is the answer? The answer, of course, is the same for you as it was for Ralph Lauren and Estee Lauder. You have to have people wanting your perfume before they go into the store — or any place you make your perfume available.

At this point you should be seeing that it doesn't matter how you distribute your perfume, whether you are able to get it into stores or not, whether you sell it over the internet, whether you sell it right out of your barn or our of the back of your car. The issue is getting people to want your perfume. To want it, the must first know about it. You, just like the giants, have to get your message out there. You have to get your samples out there. You can't afford to wait, passively, until buyers come to you.

© 2006 Miranda Sommers

Not yet available:

2. How To Create Buzz For Your Perfume
3. How To Create Terrific Store Displays
4. How To Sell Your Perfume Wholesale