About our vision
Our hope is that we can put a bottle of designer perfume into every adult hand on the planet by the end of December 2030. And why do we want to do this? Because when people smell great, they feel special!
Simon Maritz
Founder Fine Fragrance Collection
So, how do we do this? By democratising a product that up and until now has only be made available to a lucky (that is wealthy) few. In other words, designer perfume needs to become affordable and accessible.
The Background
Designer Perfume appears to be exclusive because it is expensive! It is expensive but IT IS NOT EXCLUSIVE! Fact – the liquid inside a bottle of designer perfume costs less than R20 to make. So how is it that it sells for R1500 a bottle?
Usually, things that sell for a lot of money are difficult to make or they’re rare. A Ferrari is much more expensive than a Fiat Uno because it costs a lot more to make. Gold costs a lot more than iron because there is a lot less gold than iron. But the liquid inside a cheap bottle of perfume costs only slightly less to make than the liquid inside an expensive bottle. There is no such thing as expensive perfume! ALL PERFUME IS CHEAP!
So why do the laws of scarcity and manufacturing costs not apply to designer perfume?
Because the designer perfume industry is a monopoly that has been ripping off consumers for more than 50 years. At a global level, this industry is (in the main) controlled by six multinational companies (namely Coty, L’Oréal, Puig, LVMH, Chanel and Estee Lauder) who collaborate with a handful of big national retailers, at a local level, to keep the retail price of all the perfumes identical! This is nothing more than price fixing! Which is illegal!
Check out the price of any of the designer perfumes at Edgars, Woolworths, Truworths and Foschini. You will find the price is EXACTLY the same – down to the last cent! Coincidence? Perhaps! If applied to only one perfume, but certainly not to all! This is collusion and price fixing at the highest level!
I’m convinced that if the big national retailers read this they will adjust their prices! And that would confirm that they have always been aware of their unethical behaviour!
The Reality
But what does this all mean? It means that a product that costs little more than toothpaste or soap to make, is only made available to the elite! However, when confronted with this argument, the very people who want to retain their “image”, defend their elitist attitude by saying, “surely poor people can just buy that “cheap” perfume.” This is both arrogant and condescending!
The truth is, when, at the point of purchase, poor people are presented with the option of expensive designer perfume or “cheap” perfume, they tend not to buy perfume at all because they think cheap perfume is inferior. And, unfortunately, they simply cannot afford the “expensive” ones. This means, the desire to smell nice, which should be every human’s right is only made available to the privileged few!
We are going to to rectify this injustice!
The Future
There are three steps to solving this inequality:
- Educating the consumer that good quality perfume is not a scarce commodity, and it costs around the same to make as toothpaste and soap;
- Making “designer” perfume affordable to all i.e. at R60 a bottle;
- Making “designer” perfume as accessible as possible.
Based on these simple three steps, our vision is to make Fine Fragrance Collection generic designer perfumes available to every consumer (irrelevant of their economic status) through our Agent program.
Then go global, and replicate what we have done in South Africa and make affordable generic designer perfume available to every person on the planet by the 31 December 2030.
If we can achieve this, we will affect massive social change at a global level and this will show the world how a business can work for the greater good of society!
Smelling great should be a right! Why? Because when you smell great you feel special, no matter who you are!
Please partner with us to make this dream a reality!
(Update 30 September 2022) I naively thought that every major shopping centre in South Africa would welcome the opportunity of allowing their customers the option to buy an affordable bottle of designer perfume! Wrong, wrong and wrong! Not only did the vast majority of the shopping malls not welcome us, but some have actually terminated our leases. The reality is that the industry is pushing back. Offering designer perfume to the people at R60 a bottle is upsetting the apple…sorry profit cart.
The big brands through their “chosen” retailers are putting pressure on the landlords to have us excluded from reaching the people. But, we have now introduced our agent program where we allow the hustlers and entrepreneurs amongst us to buy our perfumes for R30 and sell them for R60. This will allow us to sidestep the road blocks the perfume “establishment” are trying to put in our way to stop the people buying affordable designer perfume! We may lose a few battles along the way but in the end we will win the war. The genie is out the bottle, people no longer have to pay anything more than R60 to smell great and feel special!
All deliveries cost R65 and take 14 working days.
We deliver throughout South Africa, but some outlying areas cannot be delivered to.
