Fragrance News from WWD

My boyfriend was just complaining on our last trip to Sephora that other stores don’t have nearly as many testers available for potential buyers. The options presented here sound good, but there’s a lot to be said for shopping a full-service fragrance counter that offers testers and take-home samples, along with fragrance suggestions and advice. The scented balm presented by Elizabeth Arden sounds like it could get really icky – imagine how much dust and hair would get stuck to something like that? I haven’t seen the ScenTest pods around, either – I wonder what the sample itself is like?

The biggest obstacle to selling fragrances in the mass market is
finding a method to sample the scents. Without sales associates to spritz
people with the fragrances, shoppers are left to just guess if they like a
juice. In some cases, shoppers break open boxes and tamper with fragrance
seals to try out a new product – thus rendering the item unfit to sell.

Over the years, there have been attempts to solve the problem.
Testers, of course, are one vehicle. Too often, however, the testers “take
off” in unwatched departments. Scent strips have also been placed around
fragrances, but they also tend to be pilfered quickly.

A few other innovations over the years have been
scratch-and-sniff stickers affixed to boxes. However, as consumers
scratched, the stickers got messy looking and again the package was not
attractive to sell.

There are two new solutions – one currently being used in mass
and the other only in department stores – but both have great applications
for chain stores. One concept being used by Elizabeth Arden involves
fragrance balms in containers affixed to shelves. Since it is not the actual
bottle, pilferage is lower than with real testers. Target is among the
retailers trying out the Solid Tester from Arden.

The latest innovation is from Scentest Communication and it is a
pod-like kiosk where consumers can get a free sample. Right now, the
Scentest pods are being placed in shopping malls near department stores to
drive consumers there. About 78 Simon Property shopping centers have the
testers at this time. “This is an alternative sampling medium,” said Cyrille
Guyot, senior vice president of Scentest Communication. “The strip has been
around for 30 years and it’s a successful medium. It’s necessary to the
marketing mix when a company is launching a fragrance. But we wanted to push
the envelope and introduce Scentesters into department stores to address the
concern of traffic in anchor stores. The kiosks also display advertising
images for the fragrances. Scents signing on include Armani, Ralph Lauren,
Kenzo, Bulgari, Calvin Klein, Cerruti, Cacharel, Lancome, Paul Smith, YSL
and Azzaro.

Down the road, similar vehicles could work wonders in mass
market stores. In addition to serving as silent “sales people,” the kiosks
could also be used in other spots of the store to drive consumers to beauty.