The True Secret Of Selling
Your Own Perfume Successfully
Some Observations From
Experience & Elsewhere
© 2007 Lightyears, Inc.
For many a creator or would-be creator of perfume, the dream lives on that once a new fragrance (or fragrance idea!) is presented to the right department store or cosmetics company vice-president, the creator's scent will be launched with great fanfare; fame and riches will shortly follow.
In spite of what American's call "negative thinking" (and the rest of the world calls reality), this dream can never be more than wishful thinking for two compelling reasons.
The problem with department stores is NOT that they don't want your perfume. Their problem is they don't know how to sell a fragrance. What they do know how to sell (very effectively!) is a product from a recognized brand. Once the brand is known, the department store can sell it. But they simply do not have the advertising and marketing mechanisms necessary to launch an unknown brand by an unknown perfumer. That is NOT the business they are in!
The problem with the big marketing companies (Estée Lauder, Coty, Elizabeth Arden, etc.) is that most of them don't make perfume; they purchase it from a major fragrance house such as Givaudan, Quest International or International Flavors & Fragrances. In the very few cases where the marketer makes their own perfume (Chanel and now Hermès), an in-house perfumer is employed to do the job.
The home perfumer who sets his or her sights on being taken under the wing of a corporate giant is dreaming. In fact, there is ONLY ONE WAY to get started at having your own perfume sold to the public — you must do it the same way that François Coty did ... the same way that Elizabeth Arden did ... the same way that Helena Rubinstein did ... the same way that Charles Revson did ... the same way that Estée Lauder did — you must package and sell it YOURSELF!
Selling Your Own Perfume To The Public
Few artist-creators have the marketing skills and business abilities needed to sell their own perfume successfully — without a little help. But people DO buy perfume from independent creators. The marketing task is very far from impossible. But successful marketing of your own perfume must START with the premise that YOU (or a business partner) are going to go out and SELL it to people who are going to USE your perfume themselves!
Your most likely path to success is the one that seems to be most difficult.
But There Are No Limits!
Starting small doesn't mean starting with pre-defined limits. Starting small means starting on a scale you can afford to finance — so that your perfume will be making money for you, as quickly as possible (rather than costing you money!)
Starting small gives you the ability to bootstrap your business, to grow at your own pace, and to be financially successful.
This is not a limitation on the size your sales can reach. It is simply a prudent, time-tested method of reaching your sales goals and, perhaps, selling more of your perfume than you now dream could be possible!
This Collection of Thoughts
Our thoughts and brief articles on selling perfume were written for home perfumers and independent perfumers who want to sell their own perfume and who are willing to understand that the first step is NOT an interview with a major department store or cosmetics company but, rather, the creation of their own marketing plan — a realistic plan for selling the perfume they have made, bottled and decorated to real people who will buy it because they like what you have done ... and like your perfume enough to be willing to pay the price.
