Some truths about selling your perfume in retail stores

What do you really know about getting stores to take your perfume?



I wrote a little book a few weeks ago called A Method For Getting Boutique and Variety Store Owners To Take Your Perfume. What I wrote wasn't just a few random thoughts. This book was inspired by some very recent encounters with store owners. Let me elaborate.



Every time (or almost ever time) I come across a "make money selling your perfume" pitch, the writers (most of whom have never made or sold perfume!) suggest that you can make money by having your perfume in retail stores. After all, isn't that the way most perfume is sold? Actually it's a bit more complicated.



The distribution and sales of "brand name" fragrances is a far more complex business than first meets the eye. But a "general rule" would be that the "big names" are sold only though "big retailers." you won't find the really famous brands in small, independent stores or in small, local chains. The "big names" won't sell to them.



So it might seem that this creates an opportunity for you. But it's not so simple. Big retailers DISTRIBUTE name brand fragrances more than they "sell" them. The perfume sales that they make require the buyer to come into the store LOOKING for perfume. If their perfume sales had to depend on impulse buyers, perfume sales would take a big hit. In fact, perfume sales in retail stores are driven by multimillion dollar advertising campaigns paid for by the brand owners -- NOT the retail stores. (And often these campaigns themselves fail to sell the brand, although this is rarely admitted!)



So the first reality you -- with your own perfume -- have to face is that while seeing your perfume in a store might give you a great ego boost, it isn't any guarantee that you'll make money. The cold reality is that without promotion on your part, merely getting a store to display your perfume can easily result in zero sales. This becomes a big hit to your ego.



Now in this little book I just wrote, A Method For Getting Boutique and Variety Store Owners To Take Your Perfume -- which was inspired by recent and wonderfully vivid experience (that involved a perfume that was NOT one of my own!) -- is not about getting store owners to "take" your perfume so much as it is about how to work with store owners so that they become receptive to taking on your perfume with the honest intent of helping you sell it. And that's what you want.



The simple fact is that retail stores exist to make money. The kindest, nicest, friendliest, kindest to the environment, store owner still has his or her rent to pay, salaries and related benefits to pay, plus all sorts of administrative expenses. Quite likely this person is putting in long hours trying to "make it" with their store, which could be their entire livelihood.



The store owner might be kind enough to let you display your perfume for a few weeks (on consignment, meaning if it doesn't sell, you don't get any money) but unless the store owner is enthusiastic -- not about your perfume so much but about the money it can make for them -- you won't make money simply by having a few stores "take" your perfume.



Where you make your breakthrough is in developing a mutually profitable relationship with store owners. You do this by understanding their needs and what it takes to make sales in their particular stores. With this understanding you are better able to talk shop with store owners and develop a program that will make your perfume attractive enough to the store's customers that they will buy it.



It's not easy, but it's not impossible ... and it is essential if you are counting on selling your perfumes in stores. That new book again, A Method For Getting Boutique and Variety Store Owners To Take Your Perfume. If stores are your target, this book will help. (And don't blow off small stores when you're new at the game. They are your stepping stones to larger stores, and larger sales!)

It's all about the lists

Lists. The engine behind almost all promotions. Today email lists are in the spotlight thanks to hackers having broken into a major emailing facility and walked off with millions of email addresses. But street address lists are still a vital part of our economy. Ask any politician or charity -- or catalog marketer.

In the earliest years of the 20th century, before newspapers had become a cost effective mass advertising tool, fortunes were made by those who possessed the postal addresses of millions of American and Canadian heads of households.

Today, once again, I am thinking of lists -- A list -- one I don't yet have. I'm thinking of compiling a list of small, owner-operated, jewelery and gift boutiques that might be good prospects for a particular perfume. Let me explain.

Yesterday I received a bottle of a perfume I had ordered that is being marketed by a small company that caught my eye a few months ago when I was working on our Perfume Maker's Club newsletter. I don't want to mention its name here and I am not connected with the company but I will say that this perfume had a strong concept behind it. This is almost unheard of in fragrance marketing today. And the concept was reflected in the packaging. Visually it made a very strong impression with a clear message.

I knew the owner of a local jewelry shop that I thought might be a good fit for this perfume even though the shop has never sold perfume. I showed it to her and not only did the packaging get a very positive response, the perfume itself was judged to be excellent. When I explained that a small company was behind this perfume and a large order would not be necessary to get it for her shop, there was an immediate interest. Contacts were exchanged.

Anyone who has ever sold anything knows that an immediate positive response on the part of a prospect is solid gold. Then, if the "deal" is right -- the pricing, quantities, and terms offered are acceptable -- sales are quickly made.

This, however, is incredibly rare. Very, very few products "sell themselves." Especially perfumes.

So when you have a potentially hot product -- such as this perfume -- you want to pounce on it. This is where THE LIST comes in -- THE LIST is the difference between middling sales and grand profit.

I'm, not sure how involved I'd want to be with these people and this perfume. My own projects tend to keep me pretty busy. But, from my own experiences in marketing and with lists, I find myself "thinking out" what I would do to market this perfume and my first step would be to develop a list of small, successful, owner-operated boutiques specializing in jewelry or fashion, shops similar to the one I already visited.

And I already have a second shop in mind. That will make TWO shops for my list.

But to make this work I would need first, dozens, and then, hundreds of "doors" (as they are called in the retail trade) on my list. And each of them has to be hand picked as being "right" for this perfume. To do this I'd have to reach out to people in other parts of the country that might know of appropriate shops in their areas.

And commission structures up and down the line would have to be worked out.

If you've dabbled in marketing at all, what you're beginning to see is something akin to "multi-level marketing" or "affiliate marketing" but this is not all that different from the corporate marketing techniques of big companies such as Procter & Gamble and IBM -- dividing markets into regions and then sending out salespeople into territories.

But it all comes down to THE LIST -- knowing which doors to knock on so that a reasonably high percentage of sales calls will result in orders.

Now as I doodle with these thoughts, I'm not thinking of imagining first a national sales organization and then working my way down to small salesperson territories. No. I'm thinking of STARTING with a small territory -- shops within pleasant driving distance of my home, shops my wife would like to visit regardless -- and seeing how many I can uncover within, say 50 miles of my home.

Now about this list. What about competition between stores and exclusivity?Not a problem unless ... unless one of the stores wants to advertise this perfume, to put its own money behind promotion. Then I would consider giving it an "exclusive" within a specified territory.

But I think, for the most part, each store has its own customers. And, should this perfume be seen by someone in more than one store, that goes to boost the perfume's credibility and make more sales for both shops.

As for my mental marketing plan, besides the two shops already on my list, I have two contacts elsewhere in the USA who might be interested in showing this perfume around.

My list is going to grow.

A new perfume, (another) new blog

I'm working on an (almost) new perfume. It's a variation on a perfume I did slightly over a year ago on the theme of Patchwood, a new aroma chemical. (Yes, "chemical," ugh! But the whole world is chemical and that includes you. Sorry about that.)

Anyway, I'd been working to smooth out some bumps in the formula when I read about a new social networking blogging site that, according to some, has really hit it with the ultra trendy.

So naturally (or not so naturally) I opened an account and, for starters, decided to post some comments on the steps I'm going through to develop this new Patchwood perfume. You can read all about it and follow the story there.

While I've done a good deal of writing in my life and while My writings have been financially rewarding, I'm not much at this "keep up the heat" kind of social network interaction that has become so popular for marketing, but neither have I ignored it. I now understand that today life isn't complete unless you have an iPhone, Blackberry or equivalent. (I'm now carrying the Blackberry in my left pocket and the iPhone in my right. I like each of them for different reasons. One doesn't seem to replace the other.

But this isn't about devices. It's about how we communicate today. I've had a Facebook page for ages but, until I started using the Facebook iPhone app I never paid much attention to it and rarely returned the individual messages I received.

Now, thanks to the iPhone -- which I still look at as something of a toy -- I can sit watching TV and, during the commercials, check Facebook feeds, email, etc -- kind of like playing a video game. It's the most fun since PAC-Man.

But it's more than fun. Through Facebook I've connected with people I have known in the past but who I haven't seen for years. And now, living away from the big city, through these media I can still, easily, keep in touch with the wider world. It's the internet at a far faster pace.

And, as you've probably discovered by now, it's being used by companies, large and small, to sell things, like perfume.

The social networking sites, unlike the traditional website, have greater marketing power because they create communities, communities interlinked by common interest.

When I first started to use the internet to sell, a friend introduced me to the concept of having one or more forums on your website. They were interactive and dynamic in drawing appropriate visitors and, for a time, they were great for improving your standing with search engines and, ultimately, for making sales.

But forums became difficult, and then almost impossible to maintain. Flamers, spammers, advertisers, hackers all sought to disrupt your forum and take it over for their own playground. So one by one, forums that had sincere purpose and nice followings disappeared. But the urge to interact did not.

Blogs offered some of the virtues of forums without the pain since the software was given to you (you didn't have to set it up yourself, on your own website) and comments could be moderated -- they didn't get posted until the owner approved. The old spammers continued to try to post crap -- crap disguised as legitimate interactions -- but this was pretty easy to weed out (although I have let some slip by me.)

But again, blogging is a slow and time consuming way to build a community. Those who do it successfully -- Victoria Frolova -- for example -- put out a steady stream of thoughtful writings.

But if your head is into some new perfume you're developing, there isn't much room in it for thoughtful writing, much less a steady stream of thoughtful writings.

So we get Twitter. 140 characters that -- in most cases -- say nothing. Or, say "this is what I had for breakfast today." Who cares?

But Twitter plus Blogs start to add up. Twitter is a quick way to TELL people what you've done. Then they're directed to your blog.

Facebook, for me, has been a slow eye opener. The tools to build your own community are intense. When I look at "friends" suggestions I find myself reading a virtual who's who of the perfume business today -- the smaller, independent perfumers -- both the creators and the bloggers -- and discover many I know by name and some I know from personal encounters. And then, with Facebook, you're introduced to the "friends of friends" who you might want to make friends of your own.

And now there's Tumblr, yet another social networking site no doubt headed for success. At least I'm giving it a try.

All of this comes down to something rather simple. It's the reason companies like Coty, Parlux, and Elizabeth Arden sponsor so many celebrity perfumes. To sell, you have to have a fan base. Wal-Mart has its fans. Lady Gaga has hers. If you don't happen to own Wal-Mart and if you don't have a following like Lady Gaga, you're still free to DEVELOP your own following using social media. Developing a following is the first step toward being able to successfully market your perfume.

Don't kid yourself. Your perfume may be great but the world isn't going to beat a path to your door UNLESS you've gone out there and gathered up fans.

How do you do it? Nobody can tell you. But, if you have enough creativity in you to create perfume, perhaps you also have enough creativity in you to find ways to develop a following.

The great thing about all this internet social networking stuff is that, for now, it's all free.

The "cost" is the time and energy you put into developing effective ways to use it.

Good luck!

The Many Styles of Perfume Web Selling

The other day I was cleaning up some links on the "members only" pages of our Perfume Maker's Club. Going through the "Small Companies That Sell Their Own Perfume" links -- clicking on each to see if the companies still existed -- I was struck by the wide variety of styles of these websites, all of which sold perfume.

Let me say here as an "aside," you can make this study for yourself without being a member of the Perfume Maker's Club simply by doing a bunch of your own Google searches.

Dead links themselves fascinate me as they aren't all dead for the same reason. Some links die because the companies (or people) simply pack it in and go out of business. Either perfume was not so profitable for them or they moved on to other ventures that were more to their liking, or more profitable.

Then there are dead links from companies that have changed their website name (Bond No. 9 for example) and moved without leaving a redirector at the older website. (Maybe they did for a while, until they were sure everybody knew their new web address -- or perhaps they just felt those who were interested would find them through Google.)

A third set of dead links arose when companies and individuals perfumers changed their company name or business affiliation and thus their web addresses. These people were still making and selling perfume, their commitment unchanged but perhaps in a new business arrangement.

You may ask, what is the great interest in all of this? For me, since it has been about five years since I first put up this web page, I'm fascinated by those who have survived and those who have not. Remember, it can cost well under $100 a year to maintain a website so, for those who are gone, times must have gotten pretty tough; or perhaps their interest simply faded.

Among those who have continued in business I have noted some changes, some "upgrades" to websites that made them more graphically appealing. Yet among the group, at least one survivor had an absolutely crude, unaesthetic web site. And it is still offering to take orders. Of course the wonder of the internet is that a very small company can have a very beautiful, professional website which gives off the aura of major company size and success. But let's go on about these small perfume marketers.

Excluding the grotesquely inartistic, the web styles I found ranged from "friendly" to "ultra sophisticated." In the middle of this are websites that I would describe as simply "businesslike," websites that exist to take orders but don't make much effort to charm.

Now for the purpose of all this discussion: If you (or I) are thinking about setting up a new website to sell perfume we've made (or perfume someone else is making for us) it is important to match the tone of the website -- the text, the graphics, and the MECHANICS -- to our perfume ... and to the "reality" of our prospective customers.

Are they sophisticates? Then our presentation should be sophisticated. Are they down to earth fragrance lovers? Then our website should be down to earth. Do they already know exactly what they have come to buy? Then let's make it easy for them to complete their purchase.

Developing a website is, essentially, is a marketing exercise. It exists to connect our product to our market. To do this we must gain credibility with the type of people who are most likely to buy our perfume. We must ask, "What do they expect to see when they come to our website?" And then we must create a website that fulfill those expectations.

It is worth remembering too that if we try to create a website for "everyone" we only manage to create a website for no one. We need to take a position; to identify our most likely prospect; to craft our website to that individual -- not to "everyone."

At the beginning this is difficult since often we don't have a clear picture of who are best prospect will be. If we also have a retail business, a bed & breakfast, a "museum" (Fragonard) or some such, we can match our web design to our shop design. We are in the enviable position of having face-to-face dealing with our customers. Lacking this advantage, we sometimes must simply take a position and say, "this is what I am going to be ... these are the people to whom I will sell my perfume" and then design the website around this fantasy and hope that it works.

Your website is your opportunity to create your own fantasy world or to extend the ambiance of your retail shop, B&B, or museum. But by studying what others have done and are doing, you get ideas that help stimulate your own creativity and lead to greater success in selling your own perfume.

Hooking up with someone bigger than you

I was reading about this fellow in Thailand, a pharmacist who had a new toothpaste. He was making good sales. How? By hooking up with a popular political party, associating his toothpaste with that party, and then selling his toothpaste through the party as a fundraiser for the party.

For him, toothpaste sales were good, so good that he was already looking for a second product to add to his line.

The concept can as easily be applied to perfume if you have a credible perfume that really pleases.

There's no getting around the fact that developing a perfume that pleases a large number of people is not an easy thing to do. But think how hard it is to develop a new toothpaste, a toothpaste that can go up against the giants in the field.

Moreover, if you are a small operation, you don't have to look for a giant opportunity -- just an opportunity, someone to hook up with, that will help you get exposure and profits for your perfume beyond what you could otherwise achieve.


If you are a developer of perfume, and you find yourself with one or more perfumes that people really like, and the number of people who like them is beyond your ability to market, give some thought to marketing through another organization. It might just give you the breakthrough you are looking for.

Can You Sell Your Own Perfume, Soap, Candles, Oils, etc., etc. On The Internet?

I've been approached with two marketing problems in the last week, both of which I would LIKE to address with solutions ... if I had any, but I'm not sure I do.

In one case we were talking about shooting a video at our 2010 Perfumery Workshop -- but shooting (and editing!) a professional quality video costs money, so how is that money recouped? How is that video marketed in such a way that it makes money? And in competition with all of the free offerings on YouTube? It would take some serious thinking, researching, planning and testing, all of which would take considerable TIME ... and, as you've heard so many times, "time is money."

In short, the first question that has to be asked is whether the TIME it (and the outlay of at least some petty cash) would be worth the potential financial reward that the project might bring.

In this particular case, I can't yet "smell" enough money down the road to make the project feasible in spite of the low (almost zero) cost of using the internet as a marketing tool.

The second project that was discussed involved selling quality -- unusual -- natural aroma materials online. Now here we already have a lot of people doing it and certainly the internet -- a website -- is an excellent marketing and retailing tool for this sort of business. The questions are (1) how would I drive appropriate traffic to the website? and (2) how would I establish credibility for the products so that, in a competitive market, they stand out and are preferred over those of other vendors?

These are pretty standard internet issues and they can with effort, I believe, be addressed successfully. The first issue -- appropriate traffic on the website -- depends largely on the overall CONTENT of the website, content that is directly related to the products being sold and which goes beyond the stories being told by competitors.

This means digging deeper when researching the products you sell, digging deeper when researching your competitors products, and then being able to articulate your findings in a story using mostly words and, as appropriate, photos, illustrations, diagrams, videos, etc. And TESTIMONIALS from customers that also tell an appropriate story on behalf of your business.

If you've done your research, if you've amassed a ton of reports on the industry, your products, your competitor's products -- you ARE in a position to establish yourself as an EXPERT in the field, which gives you credibility when recommending your own products.

So you set all this in place, on a nice website with lots and lots of pages with real, relevant information about your products, their origin, their use, and perhaps ways to use them that your competitors have not yet discovered.

Then you get busy with the social networking -- make "friends" -- communicate regularly -- develop a following -- and, in time, you begin to make sales.

For those products that are "internet friendly," -- products that people LOOK FOR on the internet -- the internet is a great way to make sales. But it takes TIME ... lots of time, to put it together ... and it takes lots of creative energy.

The good news is that it does NOT take much money. Less than $100 a year if you're doing it all yourself. That's pretty darn affordable.

Getting To Know The Fragrance You Sell

When a giant fragrance marketing company launches a new fragrance today, chances are they have done a LOT of homework trying to match up the "image" they will be using to sell the fragrance (a celebrity, for example) with the fragrance itself, and with the packaging. Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent. By one estimate, the entire anticipated first year's sales will be plowed into developing the fragrance and its launch.

And for all that, it's a crap shoot.

Giant fragrance launches need giant numbers of buyers. I was taught many years ago that to appeal to the masses -- the only place you can find a giant number of buyers -- you have to make the sales pitch as tame as possible. It must be acceptable too all, offensive to none. Leave out anything that might be regarded as controversial. Keep everything "nice." And in perfume, the same goes for the fragrance. Keep it "nice" so EVERYONE likes it. If you think this is boring, please read on.

For someone who wants to sell their own fragrance and IS NOT a marketing giant, the opposite approach works better. In fact, it is the only way to make headway against the giants. Let your product be a little "edgy" ... let your advertising be targeted to the few rather than the many. Don't try to compete with Coty and Estee Lauder on packaging.

But to make this work, you have to know your chosen market. And your fragrance.

Now let's talk about people who are making their own fragrances who are NOT part of the industry. Let me speak for myself.

When I work on a new fragrance, unlike the system of the giant fragrance marketers, I DO NOT have it all together in my head as to who (exactly) my target market will be and how I am going to appeal to them in my packaging. As to the fragrance itself, I may start off with a theme or image in mind, but for the most part I am working with my nose. I am tracking down "smells" that interest me, fascinate me, provoke me, and challenge me to "do something" with them. One of the results of this "method" was my men's fragrance, Toxic.

Of course like anything you create yourself, it's hard to see it the way others might. Among the first people to get a sample of Toxic were a perfumer with over thirty years of industry experience and a research chemist working for one of the world's largest fragrance creation houses. They were NOT impressed. (At least, not impressed favorably.) I was a bit disappointed, as anyone would be, but I kept my disappointment to myself and proceeded to offer Toxic to the world -- at least to my small niche in the world -- my websites.

At this point, Toxic has been around for a few years and I can't tell you how many men are using it but I can tell you that I use it myself. And I use it more frequently now than I did a year ago, because I have come to understand it.

Understand it? Yes. And a little background in history has helped me. First, my thoughts have very much been on "modern" art -- the art that emerged in Europe around 1900. This art was DIFFERENT from traditional art. It was scorned and rejected because it called for a new way of seeing. The eye -- and mind -- had to adjust to what the artist was doing. It took time, interest, and motivation. And today we look upon those once rejected painters as the heroes of the art world.

So ask yourself. Must today's men's fragrances smell like yesterday's men's fragrances? Is there room for a breakout? Can we adjust our noses to something new?

My nose had adjusted and, as a result, a whole lot of mass market fragrances are now nothing but stink to me ... and I am quite happy to wear Toxic in public.

But there is a second side to it that also relies a bit on a knowledge of history and it deals tenacity -- the ability of a fragrance to linger on, for a long time. Most 19th century fragrances -- particularly men's fragrances -- lacked tenacity. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte never went anywhere without several bottles of cologne in his boot. When you think of a cologne lacking in tenacity, you can understand his need to keep refreshing himself.

And "refreshing" is perhaps the key historic word that goes with cologne.

4711, which claims to date back to 1792, calls itself "The Instant Freshener," Mennen called its famous after shave "Skin Bracer." Edmund Roudnitska's Eau Sauvage for Christian Dior was distinguished by its lack of tenacity. The deal is simple. Refresh and go away! Don't linger. Don't make a man feel "perfumed" (as a good number of men's fragrances do today!) Just wake the guy up in the morning, make him feel good, and then tone it down to just above zero by the time he gets to the office, factory, school or college, or the big government office.

In fact, seen THIS way, Toxic is a PERFECT fragrance that will not offend, even if a guy works in a "fragrance free" zone!

So here's what I've learned about my own fragrance, Toxic. First, you have to look at it like a piece of modern art. Your nose has to adjust to the concept -- and it can. Then when it does, you'll understand and appreciate it.

Secondly, Toxic's lack of tenacity is a VIRTUE, not a shortcoming. It gives you that 7AM jolt, it wakes you up and helps you get EXCITED about the day (what mass market men's fragrances can do that!) and then it settles down to just a very, very light, lingering note that won't offend the most vehement fragrance objector.

This is what I've learned about Toxic, my own creation. And now I want to learn more about the men who "accept it."