In the fragrance business, it’s not just the scent that matters. After starting your business, as a successful entrepreneur, your thinking should extend beyond your product to the way it’s presented and sold. After all, a successful business owner or salesperson doesn’t just present a range of bottles – they craft unforgettable experiences and forge genuine relationships.
Whether you’re a seasoned distributor or just embarking on your journey to sales success, this guide offers industry-exclusive insights on how to sell perfume. From mastering your conversational abilities to hosting unforgettable events, FM Perfume Group’s UK experts are here to delve into the top sales tips and tricks for sale-making and connection-building.
FM Perfume – How to Sell FM Perfumes
Before Getting Started: Use Your Own Perfume Products
While it’s important to equip yourself with persuasive selling techniques, they’ll be useless without solid knowledge of the products you’re offering. Every scent in your FM perfume collection has been shaped by a combination of unique ingredients, craftsmanship and creativity.
As a distributor, it’s important to familiarise yourself with the most important elements or USPs (unique selling points) of each fragrance you offer, from fragrance families to the immediate allure of top notes and the enduring charm of base notes. The best way to do this is to use the perfumes yourself! Build up a high level of experience with the scents you’re planning to offer, sampling each one for scent, and longevity, and even considering who in your potential customer base might like them.
By doing this, you’ll be equipping yourself with the knowledge you need to give your customers insightful recommendations, establishing yourself as a helpful point of expertise and the go-to business for a bespoke shopping experience!
In addition to this, by developing a deep understanding of your product line, you’ll be able to advertise more effectively – for example, promoting fragrances for day and night, or seasonally on your social media pages.
Perfume Sales Techniques
So, once you know your product line inside and out, how do you start making sales? Well, it’s not just about what you’re selling – but how you’re selling it. Every product, especially one as intimate and personal as perfume, requires a unique approach to sales. Here are our experts’ top tips on how to sell perfume:
Our Top ‘Traditional’ Sales Methods
Our top FM World distributors have been selling perfume for years. The following are their go-to classic techniques and staple processes for boosting order numbers.
Delivering Personalised Consultations
Your sales techniques should be as personal as perfume is! Bespoke consultations are interactive sessions where you sit down with potential buyers to uncover their unique scent preferences and requirements. It’s more than just understanding what scents they lean towards; it’s about building a connection and understanding their story. You might want to do this in person, over direct messages, or even provide quick responses in your social media comment section!
To make the most of a personalised consultation, you’ll need to learn how to talk about your perfumes, and to customers. Start by asking open-ended questions to gauge a client’s past fragrance favourites, memorable scents, or even occasions they’d like a fragrance for. This helps to identify patterns or specific notes they’re drawn to. Using this information, you can then introduce selections from your perfume collection that align closely with the client’s preferences. The key here is active listening and providing choices that genuinely resonate with the individual. By taking this extra step, you not only elevate the buying experience but also significantly increase the likelihood of a sale, as customers appreciate and value the personal touch.
Using Sample Kits
When buying perfume, firsthand experience is often invaluable – after all, why go in blind when you can be certain of your choice? It’s one thing to describe a fragrance’s notes and the emotions it conjures, but it’s another to let a potential customer experience it firsthand. That’s why FM World provides discovery boxes and curated sets of fragrance samples designed to provide a tactile experience of your extensive scent range. These discovery boxes aren’t just scent testers, they aim to acquaint individuals with the diverse array of fragrances you offer, enabling them to explore and find scents that resonate with their personal preferences.
These perfume samples are an invaluable tool in engaging customers. By offering samples, you allow potential buyers to test and wear the fragrances in different settings, ensuring the scent compliments their lifestyle and body chemistry.
Hosting Themed Perfume Parties and Events
For products as sensory as perfumes, experience is everything. Want to step up from offering samples? Hosting themed perfume parties and events, where fragrances are presented in the context of a specific theme or setting, offers you an opportunity to transform the sales process into a captivating affair. From themes like ‘Summer Breeze’ which explores fresh, oceanic, and citrus scents, to a ‘Romantic Evening’ filled with sultry and alluring fragrances, each theme sets the tone and guides attendees on a sensory journey. The goal is to intertwine the allure of perfumes with memorable experiences, ensuring that each scent is not just smelled but felt.
So, where do you start with crafting your full-sensory experience? Start by understanding your audience, and choosing a theme that resonates with their preferences. Whether it’s a journey through seasons or a trip around the world, make it relatable. Remember, the environment matters, so if your theme is ‘Tropical Getaway’, consider beach-themed decorations, calming ocean sounds, and tropical treats. The aim is to immerse attendees in the chosen theme completely.
Including activities like sampling and fragrance layering sessions can engage the attendees even further. By transforming sales into an event, you can create a deep bond between customer and scent.
Keeping a Bottle In Your Bag
When you step out wearing your favourite FM fragrance, you’re doing more than just indulging in a beautiful scent; you’re actively turning your presence into a mobile advertisement for your business – an effective one at that! The people around won’t just be engaged by your perfume but will perceive you as a living endorsement of your product’s quality. The genuine power of this approach shines when someone, be it a close friend or a newfound acquaintance, is drawn in by your scent and starts a conversation.
Keeping an FM perfume bottle in your bag isn’t just convenient—it’s strategic. When compliments roll in, having that bottle at the ready allows you to offer interested individuals a firsthand experience, paving the way for a potential sale. It’s about seizing the moment, being prepared, and letting the product speak for itself.
Giving Your Products as Gifts
Gifting an FM Perfume is more than just a thoughtful gesture—it’s creating a direct introduction to your products. Every time you present one of your high-quality fragrances as a gift, you’re offering a personal, full-bottle experience. This firsthand encounter often resonates more profoundly than any advertisement could – and following the special occasion, the perfume will speak for itself.
Fragrances have the unique power to stir memories and feelings. When someone reminisces about the delightful scent they received as a gift, it’s not just the fragrance they remember, but also the person who introduced them to it – you. This connection can turn gift recipients into repeat customers with ease.
Selling on Social Media
Social media has become an invaluable tool for promoting both perfume businesses and products. If you haven’t yet, be sure to set up business pages across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, where you’ll be free to show your offerings to the world and engage directly with your client base from anywhere in the world. You can even give paid advertising a try!
Creating a Social Media Experience
Your Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook profiles should be more than just a collection of adverts. Try creating an immersive experience aligned with how you’d like people to see your business and perfumes, setting the perfect mood for your customer base through visuals, captions, sounds, and interactions.
To implement this strategy, understanding the nuances of each social media platform is crucial. For example, while Instagram is perfect for aesthetically pleasing posts and short reels capturing the essence of a fragrance, TikTok is the go-to for trendy, themed challenges involving your perfume. Either could involve setting up themed photoshoots or crafting video content that aligns with the fragrance’s story.
Selling on socials is also about engaging with your audience. So, encourage your followers to share their experiences with your perfume, whether that’s through a hashtag or a challenge. Run polls, quizzes, or Q&A sessions about the showcased fragrances to maintain a solid level of interaction. Tutorials on where to wear a particular scent, and pairing it with outfits or occasions, can also increase engagement. And why work alone when you can collaborate with influencers or micro-influencers to widen your reach and add credibility? The result? Make sure that every time a follower thinks of buying a perfume, your engagement is the first thing they recall, pushing them one step closer to a purchase.
Engaging in Friendly Challenges
Selling doesn’t have to be all work and no play. That’s why engaging in friendly challenges, like fun tasks, quizzes, or contests, can encourage participation while creating a buzz around your product or business. For the perfume industry, these challenges can revolve around fragrances, personal experiences with scents, or even creative displays of the products.
Not sure where to start? Why not begin by brainstorming challenge ideas that are both engaging and relevant to your fragrance collection? For example, a scent story challenge, where you ask participants to share a short story or memory invoked by a particular fragrance.
If you want to ensure a successful friendly challenge then make sure you lay out simple and straightforward rules so participants grasp what’s expected. Spice up the contest with enticing rewards, like discounts or perfume prizes. It’s essential to maintain active engagement, so make sure to comment on and share participants’ entries.
Leveraging Testimonials and Stories
Nothing speaks louder than the genuine voices of satisfied customers. Testimonials/reviews and success stories act as real-world endorsements of your business and products, providing potential customers with evidence of your product’s quality. When selling perfumes, tapping into these authentic narratives can bridge the gap between brand promises and real-world results.
Sharing Personal Stories and Anecdotes
Personal success stories are first-hand accounts detailing journeys with a brand or product. These stories might recount initial experiences with the brand or positive results. Sharing stories like these offers a humanising touch to your products. Many of our entrepreneurs have, for example, found success in gathering personal anecdotes about their customers meeting their partners wearing particular fragrances.
When you feel you have a story worth sharing, make sure to structure it in a compelling way designed to engage your customers. You can share your stories on various platforms, from a detailed blog post, and short anecdotes on social media, to in-person sharing during events or sales pitches.
Sharing Client Feedback
Client feedback refers to the testimonials, comments, and opinions that your customers provide based on their experiences with your product. Whether it’s a recount of a fragrance that became an instant favourite or feedback about the memories a particular scent evoked, these testimonials are endorsements of the product’s quality and appeal. By showcasing client feedback, you offer potential customers a glimpse into real-world experiences with your perfumes, making the buying decision easier and more informed.
Start by showcasing positive testimonials prominently on your social media pages – offering potential customers evidence of your product’s value.
Constructive feedback can be beneficial to your business and sales process. Addressing criticism transparently and showcasing the steps taken to improve where necessary will demonstrate your commitment to improvement and customer satisfaction.
Become an FM World UK Perfume Distributor
Having delved deep into how to sell perfume, you’re now ready to captivate your customers.
If you haven’t already joined FM World but have enjoyed this article, then starting your own business and becoming a distributor could be your calling. You won’t just be selling perfumes, but sharing stories, experiences, and a lifestyle – all whilst unlocking huge income potential and exclusive incentives, from luxury cars to perfume gift vouchers! So, why wait? Embrace this chance, join our dynamic team of distributors, and let the world of FM propel you to success.
Sign up today!