Building a fragrance brand through online consumption

 

French perfumery has always fascinated me. I learned perfumery from ISIPCA, a specialised school in Versailles, France, and later stayed on in Paris for 16 years creating fragrances. I wanted to bring the prestige French style perfumery to India. Also, a thought provoking question I had when I returned back to India after the global meltdown was, 'Why is still there no recognised brand of perfumes in India?' This was motivation enough for me to come out on my own to build a fragrance brand in India. A brand with premium quality fragrances, in the 'affordable luxury' segments for the new, contemporary and young Indians. This is how ALL GOOD SCENTS was born. 

When I decided to launch a perfume brand in India, there were many challenges: 

 1 - There was not a single trusted Indian brand in perfumes in the country! 2 - Mostly deodorants and body sprays were used on a daily basis as perfumes. 3 - In people's mind, the expertise in perfume lies only with the established foreign brands. 4 - Foreign perfume brands are very expensive, used only for occasions and not on a daily basis. 5 - For a startup brand, in a relatively un-ventured area, to go into offline retail distribution model is very expensive.

Few opportunities I thought for going online were -

E-commerce was fast catching up in India and was poised to grow at a very rapid speed. The US and China were far ahead and it is expected that India will not only scale up fast but also go ahead with its m-commerce model.

As perfumery is a subject, which is quiet niche, it was best explored going online with us sharing our knowledge with the online community and our buyers. 

ALL GOOD SCENTS is a modern, contemporary brand. Going online was almost mandatory in keeping sync with our values. We get a chance to be very creative at relatively low costs online. 

ALL GOOD SCENTS is positioned for seekers of accessible luxury. 

There is a huge social pressure today amongst the upwardly mobile youth and young adults to be socially accepted. Immaculate grooming is considered a sign of social status. Body odour, bad breath, oily hair, body hair, garish make-up, etc. have all become immediate signs of lack in sophistication. Rituals for social acceptance have never been so important.

Hence, with ALL GOOD SCENTS, we aim to make an impact without saying a word. Let the fragrance speak for itself. We want our consumers to use our fragrances on a daily basis and hence are at very pocket-friendly prices.

 

Young college going students, working youths and young adults; married or unmarried. Luxury savvy but not necessarily wealthy. Consumers seeking entry into the upper echelons of society. Digitally savvy and comfortable with online shopping.

Our strategy involves a) creating awareness about our branded perfumes: at affordable luxury fragrances being delivered to your doorstep b) With the innovative SCENTBOX - try before you buy. Choose your signature fragrance and make the impact you want. c) Choice of fragrances and offers & d) Various communication mediums to engage the consumers on the wide world of perfumery. 

 

A 50ml EDT starts at INR 750 and goes up to INR 1,500 for a 100ml.

EDP's start at INR 750 for a 30ml to INR 1,500 for a 75ml.

I consider our experience and knowledge in Perfumery to be one of the most important edge over competition. We are the fragrance experts in the country and soon plan on starting a few training workshops too. We are fully focused on eau de toilettes and eau de parfums as our core offering and not as a sub category or extension of some other business. We aim to be the first perfume house of India. We are modern, contemporary and innovative. Also, our distribution is via e-commerce and m-commerce, which we believe is poised for a great growth in India. 

We generally do very little discounting from our own brand portal www.allgoodscents.com

Instead, we offer our customers free delivery across India without any minimum purchase and other exclusive offers like a free mini-spray on a full size purchase of a perfume, the SCENTBOX option of sampling any 3 fragrances is only available on our website, gifting options, etc.

Discounts and offers are done for a few key events and days in the year. Our strategy is to offer our customers certain special services and exclusive products via our own portal and work on discounts with our other e-tailer partners. 

However, with each e-tailers too, we agree on the discounts and don't go into heavy discounting. We work with each e-tailers on a SOR (sale or return) model and hence, take back any non-selling inventory back from them. 

To attract new customers, we also work with my targeted companies in giving away special offer vouchers to their employees or customers for directing them to our website for awareness and purchase. 

 

For now, I see the Chinese perfumes largely in the un-segmented mass markets in offline retail distribution. In fine perfumery we do not yet have much threat from them.

 

If some interesting opportunities come up, then yes, we will also move offline. But for now, our plans are all structured around growing online.  

 

Education in perfumery is also an integral part of our brand and vision. At the same time it needs to be fun. Although our culture has been rich in fragrances, there is a huge lack of education in the modern perfumery and its uses. We intend to launch some workshops and training sessions, which revolve around the sense of smell and fragrance creation in the coming months. 

Sampling is another vital part of our brand mission. We need to reach people to make them smell our fragrances. Various innovative methods and tools are being worked out in the sampling area. 

We have planned on adding other categories and sub-categories in the product range. At the end of this fiscal year we will launch new fragrances. Line extensions like after-shaves, shower gels, etc. in the same fragrance range are also lined up.