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Fragrances created by Philip Goutell for Lightyears, Inc. can be found at —
Simple Perfume Making Instructions- Marketing Ideas for Independent Perfume Makers
- Our Museum of Modern Perfume
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For Updates follow us on Twitter
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The other day at the NYC Gift Show I spotted a perfume I liked, a French perfume that came with a good story and would have made a nice product for an up scale gift shop. But the wholesale price — the price to me — was $19.95. Wow!
I would have sold that fragrance for $45. So let's see. $45 take away $19.95 and I'm making $25.05 on every bottle I sell. "Not bad," you say? "Not good," I reply. Not good for two reasons.
First, I could make that fragrance for a cost to me of from $3 to $4 per bottle. And I could make it in a small enough quantity so that my total investment to produce maybe 50 bottles would be around $200, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending on the bottles I selected and how I produced the labels.
Now look at the alternative. For the same $200 I could only have purchased ten bottles of that nice French perfume. Fifty bottles of the French perfume would have cost me $997.50! Now let's look at a few consequences.
If I made my own perfume and sold it for the same $45 per bottle (I have some good tricks for getting that price!), instead of making $20.05 per bottle sold I would be making about $41 per bottle. That's a big difference.
My outlay for inventory drops dramatically. Remember, when you buy wholesale, your vendor usually requires an initial order of $500 to establish your account. But for $200 I could make my own fragrance. That's $300 that stays in my pocket while, at the same time, I'm getting more inventory for the store!
For my $200 I can make 50 bottles of the fragrance. If I manage to sell all 50 bottles, I'll make $2,050. If I sold 50 bottles of the French perfume I would only make $1002.50. So I'm doubling my profit.
By making my own fragrance I can give it a nicer name than what the French came up with. — Something more modern, American — a name that works better with my shop's theme and with my own image. It also gives me exclusivity! Once women buy my product and like it (and I know they will!) they won't be able to find it anywhere else! They will have to come back to me!
Of course you might say, "Do I really want to get all that involved in making my own perfume just to sell 50 bottles?" This is a consideration. Until you think where the project can go — first your personal fragrance ... then a linen spray to go with it ... and a room spray ... and, of course, candles, soap, bath gel ... or you might want to stick to perfume!
Why start with (and maybe stick with) perfume? Because it is the easiest starting point and produces the product with the most profit.
And, of course, if you're good at selling your perfume, you might just expand your perfume line, one fragrance after another, and eventually sell to other shops — for $19.95 "wholesale" — and that's still $15.95 per bottle profit to you. And remember, as a wholesaler you are going to require an initial order of ... maybe not $500 but certainly $150 or more. That is going to give you a profit of more than $120 on the smallest wholesale order.
My how I love perfume!
