Imagine you are at a conference tea break, or a friend’s party. To freshen up, you slide a flat rectangular perfume case out of your purse and apply a few sprays. The scent smells unique and inviting. And a young man near you notices the fragrance. He is further intrigued by your photo on the perfume case and asks you about it. Eyes meet, ice breaks, and now you have a “How I met your father” story to tell your kids!
Hence Dr. Foo says Smell More, Wear Flirt and Seduce Life!
Sometimes you need to stop and smell the roses. Yes, literally and philosophically! The smell is directly linked to our limbic system which is associated with emotions and memory. So smelling pleasant and stimulating scents improves associative and creative thinking. Practically speaking who doesn’t want to smell good?
When done rightly, perfumery is a good business. It is a high-profit niche market where designer perfumes boast 100 ~ 300% profit margins. While the mass market or B2B space can see anywhere between 30 ~ 50% profit margins with higher sales volume.
I created personalized photo perfumes in my perfume shop in Chennai – India, back in 2019. It was a pocket perfume that customers bought as gifts for their loved ones. On the front side was the picture or image of the person provided by the customer. The backside had its custom message with perfume and product details. Customers could choose from standard scents that they felt the receiver may like, or get a specialized perfume made from scratch – a note for every memory or story.
Excuse the shabby photos for a photo perfume! Those days I didn’t care much about keeping a photo repository of the products I made. But I was lucky I could find and dig this out from an old GDrive.
In case you are –
- An aroma therapist
- A perfumer
- You run a corporate gifting business
- You are a soap maker
Then you can try making the photo perfumes. If you are planning to take it direct to consumer – B2C or D2C, then remember a major portion of the margin mentioned for personalized perfumes goes into marketing or customer acquisition, unless you have good walk-ins or footfall. If you are planning to go the designer perfume route with scents made from scratch, then you need to build up your orchestra notes or a good set of ingredients, that will add to your overheads. Bulk and B2B orders are the best, but they involve some paperwork and need proper research to find the right vendors to OEM for you.
I would suggest you have both the options B2C and B2B open. During festive seasons you can benefit from high margin individual sales. While in the corporate gifting seasons, you expect some bulk purchases orders. Small business pop-ups, local spas and fashion botiques are some options where you can try to place your products or OEM for them.
In case this is not for you, then please share the insight with someone you know who does the above. And feel free to share in the comments what you think about this porduct innovation.