According to market research company The NPD Group, Inc., its annual survey of consumers’ holiday spending intentions shows one in five (19%) consumers told NPD “they plan to buy fragrance” as a gift this upcoming holiday season, a two point increase from last year.
— From Fragrance On the Rise for Holiday 2009 at Happi.
Yup, I’ll be buying a fragrance–for myself, most likely.
The fragrance industry doesn’t care who you buy it for, so long as you buy it
Yeah, I’ve already started doing that. I keep having to cross things off my “fragrance wish list” (conspicuously left on the coffee table at all times) because I’ve already bought it for myself.
Lol!
LOL! That’s convenient.
Oddly enough, I only have one potential fragrance gift planned this year, and of course I wouldn’t dream of buying any for myself… Yeah. Swampland for sale in Arizona and all that.
There’s several mini collections I’d love to scoop up and I’m waiting for this year’s batch of Curious gift sets to hit my local Walgreens so I can be relatively sure to get a fresh bottle since it turns so quickly. But I do love it as a perfectly uncomplicated and pretty fragrance.
Oh, does it turn quickly? Because I was going to say check TJ Maxx, but maybe that isn’t such a good idea.
Okay, haven’t had my second cup of Scottish breakfast tea yet so maybe that’s why I’m confused, but doesn’t this article report that sales of prestige fragrances were down in the first nine months, but were up in the case of those that were priced at between $75 and $99.99 and those over $100? My math says that pretty much takes care of the whole shootin’ match. Robin, oh Goddess of Numbers, can you help?
Oh, and can anyone help me with this? I recently read that one of my favourite and most respected perfumers cringes whenever he hears anyone refer to fragrance as “juice.” I’ve cringed along with him ever since. For the life of me, though, I can’t remember who it was. JCE? FK? PG? MR? If anyone knows, please remind me. I might well have read it here. Might have been a video clip? Thanks.
Robin R- I am sorry I don’t have an answer for you, but I was wondering myself what he would prefer the actual material in the bottle be called; Suspension, perhaps? I know it sounds medicinal, but perfume is good therapy.I hope you find your answer.
Good question! I know I just use the all-purpose word ‘fragrance’ now, or sometimes the concentration, as in ‘the extrait is a darker amber colour than the eau de parfum.”
So here’s that part of the article that still has me scratching my noggin. Robin, are you on to something stronger to drink yet? Help!!!!
According to NPD BeautyTrends, in the first nine months of 2009, U.S. prestige fragrances generated a little over $1.38 billion in sales, a decline of 11%, compared to January – September 2008. However, a few bright spots in the prestige fragrance arena included fragrance juices priced between $75 and $99.99 and juices priced over $100 and over, which grew 2 and 4% in dollars respectively.
You really ought not ask me to do math even on my 3rd cup of tea (takes something stronger than tea to do maths) but doesn’t it just mean that scents under $75 are down enough that overall sales are down?
I know many people don’t like the word “juice”, but don’t know which perfumer you mean. I can understand why a perfumer wouldn’t like it — it’s an industry term (I think it’s only just started to creep into consumer use) that highlights the fact that the liquid fragrance itself (and having to say “liquid fragrance” shows why “juice” is useful, and I’m sure I’ll go on using it) is only one small part of “fragrance development”.
Incredible. I actually managed to track down the quote. It was Francis Kurkdjian from an interview in Sniffapalooza Magazine.
He said –
************
I was also fed up about people calling us “Noses” and saying we create “Juices”. I never use these two expressions which I found terrible and very disrespectful of our work.
“Nose” is to me a very pejorative expression, which is so far from our reality as perfumers.
It does not reflect at all the fact that we use our brain first to work like any other artist. You do not call a pianist or a “writer’ “hands”, a dancer “body”, “feet” or “arms”. And ‘juice’ is so terrible. It makes me feel of a poor concoction like in French we say “jus de chaussettes” (socks juice!).
*************
Socks juice. You gotta love the French!
Here’s the link to the entire interview —
http://www.sniffapaloozamagazine.com/FRANCISINTERVIEWOCTOBER10.html
In Irish ceili dancing, the dancers are called “hands”, as in the 8-hand jig for 8 people (usually with a total of 16 hands). Maybe it’s because we use our hands a little in ceili, as opposed to solo dancing where we don’t use them at all. Or maybe An Comisiún thought that the Scottish “8some” was just too cute.
An Comisiún (Gaelic for “The Commission” is the governing body for competitive Irish dance. Nobody understands how they think.
Kind of like the IFRA?
Well, ok. I can see that…but unless I’m mistaken, both terms, nose and juice, came from inside the industry.
I have no intention to hair splice whether perfumers think with their brains or noses, nor my French is sufficient enough to decode whether ‘le nez’ might carry a certain connotation, but synecdoche might be a major part in determining the jargon. Personally none of the perfumers I know have expressed their resentment over the term so I am a bit surprised that Kurkdjian is fed up by the supporsedly ‘very pejorative’ word. The only other comparable situation would be an Artistic Director being called an eye (‘l’œil’), as in Jacques Helleu’s case, or the right nostril (‘la narine droite’), as in the case of Sylvaine Delacourte if I’m not mistaken: but then again they liked the terms enough to introduced themselves to others this way. I don’t know Monsieur Kurkdjian personally, and I’m sure he has his reasons to express him own opinions (which certainly by right he is entitled to), but like any other industry sometimes people will have to get it a little bit wrong in order to get it right.
Thats fair enough. I wouldn’t like to be referred to as a body part. You don’t call footballers “feet” and typists “fingers” etc. And juice is something simple like kool-aid or something you get out of fruit, not a complex concoction.
Oh, puh-leeze… It’s just a figure of speech, and personally I’ve always thought calling someone a “nose” was a great use of synecdoche. Get over your insecurities, Francis!
However, I do love “socks juice”… In my family, we refer to the foul liquid at the bottom of the kitchen garbage as “garbage juice”!
I think those 2 extra percentage points might be ME!!!
I been buying “Christmas Perfume” since August!!! I keep handing boxes to the CEO …one eyebrow up, he says “Christmas?”, I say “uh-huh” and off it goes to the stash in the basement! Life is good.
hehe
Gracious.
I’ve seen your FB list, Daisy. I think it very well could be you…
just doin my part for the economy, ma’am.
It’s no suprise that Oct.- Dec is the most profitable time period for fragrance and I’m sure that the various houses in the industry will be going into heavy rotation in the advertising dept. to try and entice you to their product. And of course I will be going along for the ride!
Yep.
my friends generally hate to get fragrances as presents. unless it’s something they have and love and is about to run out.
I think the fragrance industry would be more than happy if you just bought yourself a bottle or two, LOL…
And I don’t tend to give fragrance gifts either, at least, not “unsniffed”.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that this survey has produced a completely useless bit of information?
More people are planning to purchase fragrance this Christmas and so what if they don’t? What if they changed their minds or they came across a great deal on toasters or whatever?
Are retailers supposed to stock up to the hilt of fragrance this year based on this survey?
I don’t have any way of knowing how useful it is…perhaps retailers have found it a useful measure in the past, perhaps not! But NPD numbers are widely used in the industry.
It’s not necessarily useless, though bullship effect can happen if taking the carefully worded info at face value: the 2% rise in the $75 and $99.99 segment and the 4% increase in the over $100 category are quoted are measuring dollars increase (the Happi article didn’t talk about the associated change in sales units, which I would be curious to learn). To me the rise in dollars increase points to 2 things: either the current trend in fragrance promotion is kicking in (gift with purchase is the ritual du jour according to WWD) or the price adjustments on some products earlier this year is the cause.
I think many studious macroeconomics student will tell you that the natural annual inflation rate is about 2% to 3% barring no extraneous circumstances that would cause deflations. So either those 2 segments are relatively constant on a like to like basis, or this holiday companies will have to focus on up-selling and cross-selling strategies more.
I don’t know if this will help but a former account executive from L’Oréal once told me that people in the fragrance industry seldomly forecast down. Generally people find a positive note on retail strategies so even the NPD numbers are modified accordingly. Yes, the NPD numbers are widely used (memorized by some even) but numbers are just numbers unless people use them wisely to hopefully make astute business decisions.
PS. Natural inflation rate is quoted on an annual basis (sorry) and I don’t have this year’s data handy.
Thanks Albert!
Wow, smart people make me feel SO inferior. Thanks for the info. Albert, although it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to actually understand it!
Oops…RossM please refer to my explanation below–I’m not the smartest with technology sometimes! It wasn’t my intention to make anyone feel inferior so sorry. And you did bring up a really important point: the article could have fooled me until I looked at what on earth was increased.
Sorry totally not my intention! What I meant is that either the retailers will, like you’ve said, stock up on the hit fragrances, or the decision makers will realize that hey, the increase is based on dollars increased only!
And without knowing what happened to the units sold the increase might due to many things, either because people are responding to the promotions…or it’s because the senior managers have jacked up the prices (which I know many had done this year).
If people are responding to the promotions then great, keep it up–if not then the increase will be kind of hollow because a bunch of factors will eat up the extra money: I talked about inflation because it affects almost everything else–labour, production and material costs, all of which eat away the increase…
So hopefully senior decision makers will look at that article and make some smart choices and not simply shout, “Great! We are on a roll!” To me either management will, say, boost holiday offerings with great promotions because they believe in the bump…or they will see the luxury fragrance business remain flatish for the year (translation: more cost-cutting measures).
The bottom line is…we don’t know what will happen just yet. The signals are mixed. It’s time like this that the senior management needs to justify their salaries by making some really smart decisions based on the info available.