All you need to know to start your own perfume business in South Africa
This is a guide on how to start your own perfume business in South Africa. Everyone loves perfume, it is used by almost any adult man or woman. People love fragrances that give them a unique and divine scent.
Perfume making is not that complicated, this article will focus on selling perfumes you have produced yourself. This comes after I met this amazing woman who makes and sells divine perfume.
Barriers to entry for perfume production are low. R6, 000 to R10, 000 are needed to get started. However, you will have to spend a lot of time working on the actual perfume, you must have enough time to devote to your unique perfumes.
Making experience
If you are someone who has never worked with perfume before but is intrigued or inspired to create your own; then you need some experience. Knowing the perfume takes a lot of time and dedication, you have to spend at least a year just learning and experimenting.
Although the barriers to entry are low in terms of money, time is the greatest of all. You won’t learn how to create a quality perfume in a week. You need to know at least 25 basic materials used in perfume making.
Knowing about perfumes will make it easier to develop fragrances that you really love, which will make them easier to sell. So where do you start from? You can start by taking a course, there are many perfume-making courses in South Africa. But most of them can be found in large cities.
If you live in rural areas or remote parts of South Africa, it is best to take online courses. YouTube is also a wonderful place, full of free resources and entire channels dedicated only to perfumery.
Produce and package your perfumes
This is the most exciting part, it’s always great to create something from scratch and bring it to life. At this point you should have the single perfume you are trying to sell, don’t try to make multiple perfumes when you are just starting out.
Focus on a potent perfume and use it in your perfumes, try to focus on one genre initially. Narrow your attention and focus your resources. Make perfumes for men or women, this will make it easier to establish a brand. You can expand the line to include other genres or flavors.
Ideally, the packaging should be beautiful enough to stand out, it should be of the same nature used by successful perfumeries. Put your brand on the packaging, it’s a good way to market your business.
Market your perfumes
This is the hardest part and will be heavily influenced by your budget. Creating a product is easy, but then again, getting people to love and like your product takes a lot of work. Your marketing should focus on identifying your target market and marketing to them relentlessly.
Always limit the number of people you’re marketing to, it’s better to get one person to see your ad 10 times and end up recognizing your brand than to get 10 people to see your ad once and forget about it.
Run video-based ad campaigns, they usually turn out to be the best for perfumes. You can also advertise in magazines, newspapers, and other platforms that usually don’t do very well.
