How to Start a Perfume Selling Shop Business in 10 Steps

Do you have a tuned sense of smell and you want to start a fragrance business with small capital? Then starting your own perfume shop business is just the perfect opportunity for you. Yes, you can also start your own online perfume store business if not interested to open a retail storefront.

Here are the 10 Steps to Start Perfume Store Business

1. Understand the Market Potential

We are all aware of the increasing demand for perfume day by day. According to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), the Indian fragrance industry is growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent. The Indian fragrance industry consists of deodorants, perfumes, and roll-ons.

The market is set to benefit from the growing trend toward consumer urbanization, higher spending propensity, and the heightened importance of personal appearance and grooming. In addition, increased demand for youth-oriented, floral, and exotic fragrances and celebrity perfumes will set the pace for rapid market expansion.

2. Do Market Research

Intensive market research is a must in starting a perfume store business. Talk to local perfume shop business owners and find out the type of perfumes that are selling most and their pricing.

You can also search online forum sites, online communities, lifestyle magazines, and social networks to get sufficient data. Once you’ve collected enough information, you can start constructing profiles of your typical customers. Market research is one of the most crucial aspects of running an online perfume store business.

Suggested Read: Product Positioning: How It Helps In Marketing?

3. Select Your Niche

If you are a beginner and starting with a little startup investment, it is advised to select a specific niche and create an authority in that category of perfumes. As profit starts coming in, you can always consider expanding your product range. Some of the perfume niches you can explore are the following:

• Eau de Parfum
• Deodorant
• Eau de Cologne
• Women’s Body Sprays & Mists
• Eau de Toilette

4. Select a Location

If you are planning to open a brick-and-mortar perfume shop, location will play a major role in the overall success of the business. Find a retail shop where there is more probability of getting high footfall. You can also consider a retail shop in a shopping mall. Shopping malls more or less guarantee of providing good traffic.

However, if you are planning to open an online perfume shop, the cost of renting a retail shop does not arise. It significantly reduces the startup investment of opening a perfume business. However, marketing costs will be higher in promoting your online perfume shop.

5. Create a Sourcing Plan

According to your plan, you will need to procure the material. You will need to select a reliable vendor who can make the delivery to your doorstep at a reasonable wholesale price.

Buying wholesale is the best way to turn a profit when you sell directly to the consumer. Contact the wholesalers directly to get pricing quotes. Compare wholesale prices to current market prices and calculate your profit per sale.

You must keep a different variety of perfumes such as for ladies, for gents, or combo with different price segments. Perfume is also considered a gift item. So packaging is also an important aspect of this business.

6. Register Your Business

If you are planning to start and run a legally compliant perfume business, it is essential to register your company. There is a wide range of company formation that is provided by the government. Some of the popular ones for startups with a limited budget are sole proprietorship, partnership, or limited liability companies. However for a larger scale and if you are looking for funds from investors, it is wise to form a private limited company.

In addition, you will need specific licenses to run a perfume company both online and offline. Do not forget to apply for a GST registration number, as it is mandatory at present for carrying out business activities in the country. It is advised to take help from a lawyer or an accounting professional and go about the process of making your perfume company legally safe.

7. Name your Perfume Company

Naming a business properly is extremely important to create a unique brand personality. Take some time and shortlist some catchy and attractive names that are appropriate to your perfume company. Also, Check whether a relevant domain name is available or not. If not available, it will create an enormous problem in creating a website similar to the business name.

Here are some of the leading perfume brand names listed below for you that might provide inspiration to find your own:

• Tom Ford
• Jo Malone
• Hugo Boss
• Maison Francis Kurkdjian
• Dolce & Gabbana
• Chloe
• Burberry
• Ralph Lauren

8. Arrange Funds for Staring a Perfume Store

The costs and investments of opening a perfume shop (online and offline) will depend on the size of the inventory and the size of the business. If you are planning to open on a larger scale, the cost of starting a perfume shop can be in the range of Rs. 25 Lacs to Rs. 50 Lacs. If you don’t have the required money of your own, there might be a need of reaching financial institutions or investors for funding your business.

If you have sufficient money to bear the costs of opening a perfume-selling shop, then you can skip this chapter. Otherwise, keep your perfume business project plan document ready. Every financial institution or private investor will ask for a viable and well-documented plan document before deciding on funding your project.

There are various banks that can fund your perfume business. You can check our article’s best places to get business loans to learn more.

9. Create an Online Perfume Store

If you are technically good at WordPress and have knowledge about the WooCommerce plugin, you can try WooCommerce powered by the WordPress Platform. But remember with WooCommerce you have to provide a lot of time creating and managing the store in technical matters.

If you want to spend more time in marketing, sourcing, and growing the business and leave the technical aspects of eCommerce outsourced safely we would recommend Shopify. Shopify has an excellent customer support system. It comes with a total eCommerce solution for your eCommerce Store.

You can try Shopify For Free Here

There are plenty of free tools one can access if you start an online shop with Shopify. Some of them are listed below:

• Invoice generator
• QR code generator
• Policy generator
• Business loan calculator
• Image resizer
• Business name generator
• Paystub generator
• Shipping label template
• Barcode generator
• Business card maker
• Gift certificate template
• Purchase order template
• CPM calculator
• Bill of lading template
• Slogan maker

Related: How to Setup An eCommerce Shop in India

10. Promote Your Perfume Store Business

The next step and final step is promoting your perfume shop. Getting customers and making the first sale and going on. Unless you are able to successfully promote your perfume shop and reach target customers, all the effort put in will be wasted.

Read: Top Growth Marketing Hacks For Small Businesses

Tell everyone you know about your new perfume store business. Draft a press release and send it to all local media outlets – news, magazines, and radio. Take time to write a good press release. Apart from traditional press, you can also reach out to influential and relevant bloggers.

Ask them if they would like to write a review or sample products. Optimize your site by using relevant keywords in product descriptions, category pages as well as URLs. Search engine optimization plays an important role when people search for any specific product on google. Increase customer interaction with the help of popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter.