Why floods of new releases don’t do any good (Niche & Artisanal)

slpfrsly

Physician, heal thyself
Basenotes Plus
Apr 1, 2019
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I feel that this is a bad-faith misconstrual of my initial post, but will decline to explain further beyond noting my non-concurrence with your assessment. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.

I hereby bow out of the thread, having regretted participating in it.
I'm amazed that that's what you choose to label as bad-faith given some of the posts in this thread from your friends, but for the sake of getting this back on track: bow accepted.

So I am not arguing anything. I don’t care about "winning" or the rhetoric, particularly when what people are arguing about and the data used is not well defined and changes. Particularly when, to be frank, none of you sound like you are making an argument, y’all sound like you are just trying to win an argument. As a someone who does not care and feels outside the whole thing, none of y’all are presenting good arguments or making anything clear (the data, what you are arguing, why it even matters).
The argument is there although at this point you have to look for it. It's contesting a fairly minor (not to mention trivial and obvious) point I made about Asia's role in the increased number of fragrances as part of my long post a few pages back in this thread. All of the bluster is intended to engulf and distract from the actual argument because there hasn't been a proper counter thesis yet (other than PStoller's dual exoticism i.e. east desires west & vice versa therefore loads of ouds). When someone comes up with something anywhere close to contradicting the summaries posted from Statista's analysis of Asian fragrance markets, then there's a discussion to have. But that's not going to happen (with the best will in the world, your misreading of "exotic" is irrelevant to the legitimacy of Statista as a source of market data).

I think most people reading have had a good eye-opener to some long-term dynamics of the forum.
 

Dorje123

Well-known member
Feb 15, 2011
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Is it just me or has the forum skewed in the direction of particularly longwinded back-and-forths lately? This thread is yet another exhausting ride.

The mood:

View attachment 489102


It ruins otherwise good threads. There are literally just a few people willing to read these wall-of-text posts, nevermind reply to them. It's too bad because some of the ideas are worthy of discussion. There's merit to clear and concise communication rather writing a dissertation to reply to every comment.
 

Schoeibksr

Well-known member
Jul 21, 2024
56
71
To anyone that keeps riding this Asia thing : Please stop it. My original post was about the bad effects of brands pushing out too much while worsening their quality, please contribute to that instead, or simply leave, thanks. :)
 

lair77

Well-known member
Jun 7, 2022
511
704
We may have our own opinions of this, but the companies (and a critical mass of their customers) have decided that it's beneficial to put out more releases.

Three potential reasons:
  • Trial and error. Put out 10 bottles; 1 of them might be a mega hit. (The ones that don't sell as well could be shelved or maybe come back as a limited edition release in a rotation)
  • Different people have different preferences. Maybe you think only 1-2 out of 10 of a company's 10 most recent fragrances are necessary, but we may all have a different which 1-2 we like.
  • Engagement. Companies need headlines, need content for their social media, need customers to go to go the store and sample their product. Designer houses have fashion shows and other products to garner interests, but niche fragrance companies only have fragrances. Maybe they can't afford to take a 2-3 year break from releases.
 

lair77

Well-known member
Jun 7, 2022
511
704
And #4, honestly, a sizeable portion of the fragrance community treats this industry like fast-fashion.

Many of the people here already have 50-100+ bottles, and they want to blind buy more bottles (that they probably won't use more than a few times per year) just for the novelty.
 

slpfrsly

Physician, heal thyself
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Apr 1, 2019
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And #4, honestly, a sizeable portion of the fragrance community treats this industry like fast-fashion.

Many of the people here already have 50-100+ bottles, and they want to blind buy more bottles (that they probably won't use more than a few times per year) just for the novelty.
All good reasons, although there's also the matter of exponential competition for established brands to just survive, as previously mentioned. That means the model of selling quantity over quality isn't so much a choice as a necessity.

On the fast fashion point, hedonic adaptation is a big factor in this. The internet (again, usual culprit) can shape the point of normal for an individual or collective much faster than it could be done by TV or print media. With more people in the world, with more disposable income and more access to the global market, there's a selection process taking place whereby those who are inclined to buy X% of fragrances released are doing precisely that. Where previously (50+ years ago) owning 100+ bottles of perfume might have been something you'd expect from an eccentric, downwardly-mobile heiress in NYC, now it's your local security guard or taxi driver who has that kind of collection. This has many implications, as often discussed, on the quality as well as the quantity of fragrance; why flankers and special editions are part of the approach to releasing quantity. The typical 'big spender' of yore is a thing of the past*, yet the same/similar extravagance still takes place but with a different product and to a different customer.

In essence, it's the extreme customers who are shaping what gets produced. And the needle keeps moving to further extremes because of hedonic adaptation.

What would be fascinating to know is what percentage of customers these "extreme" buyers actually comprise. For a product like Sauvage EDT, presumably they are a tiny fraction. But for something niche or artisanal, they would be a much greater percentage. So there's two things relating to extending the extremities of taste here: one is the massive seller with broad appeal (dark blues) and the other is the multitude of niche fragrances made for a much smaller but ravenous set of buyers (indie/artisanal/boutique/high end/ltd editions/discontinued). Both approaches are in contrast to the reliable returning customer who loves his signature scent and will come back to buy it year after year, decade after decade (although I suppose the mass-seller dark blue is a little like that, the 4-5 flankers it spawns and the fact that it's so popular means it's not really the same).

* I'd qualify this with the fact that some brands, notably Guerlain, release incredibly expensive special editions that cost thousands per bottle; these are more in keeping with what that old 'big spender' would have guzzled up in years gone by. So they do still exist but are not what's driving the trend we're discussing. Even the supposedly luxurious boutique brands that sometimes charge £500+ a bottle (Boadicea, Fragrance du Bois) are still 'mass' in outlook.
 

Schoeibksr

Well-known member
Jul 21, 2024
56
71
All good reasons, although there's also the matter of exponential competition for established brands to just survive, as previously mentioned. That means the model of selling quantity over quality isn't so much a choice as a necessity.

On the fast fashion point, hedonic adaptation is a big factor in this. The internet (again, usual culprit) can shape the point of normal for an individual or collective much faster than it could be done by TV or print media. With more people in the world, with more disposable income and more access to the global market, there's a selection process taking place whereby those who are inclined to buy X% of fragrances released are doing precisely that. Where previously (50+ years ago) owning 100+ bottles of perfume might have been something you'd expect from an eccentric, downwardly-mobile heiress in NYC, now it's your local security guard or taxi driver who has that kind of collection. This has many implications, as often discussed, on the quality as well as the quantity of fragrance; why flankers and special editions are part of the approach to releasing quantity. The typical 'big spender' of yore is a thing of the past*, yet the same/similar extravagance still takes place but with a different product and to a different customer.

In essence, it's the extreme customers who are shaping what gets produced. And the needle keeps moving to further extremes because of hedonic adaptation.

What would be fascinating to know is what percentage of customers these "extreme" buyers actually comprise. For a product like Sauvage EDT, presumably they are a tiny fraction. But for something niche or artisanal, they would be a much greater percentage. So there's two things relating to extending the extremities of taste here: one is the massive seller with broad appeal (dark blues) and the other is the multitude of niche fragrances made for a much smaller but ravenous set of buyers (indie/artisanal/boutique/high end/ltd editions/discontinued). Both approaches are in contrast to the reliable returning customer who loves his signature scent and will come back to buy it year after year, decade after decade (although I suppose the mass-seller dark blue is a little like that, the 4-5 flankers it spawns and the fact that it's so popular means it's not really the same).

* I'd qualify this with the fact that some brands, notably Guerlain, release incredibly expensive special editions that cost thousands per bottle; these are more in keeping with what that old 'big spender' would have guzzled up in years gone by. So they do still exist but are not what's driving the trend we're discussing. Even the supposedly luxurious boutique brands that sometimes charge £500+ a bottle (Boadicea, Fragrance du Bois) are still 'mass' in outlook.
Yup, what is really exclusive these days, except for hilarious price tags that don’t justify the actual content inside at all… To this I would also add Rojas latest creations 😅 They also seem to push out inferior quality for really high prices, still trying to take advantage of Oud in the name, while it doesn’t smell like it (or even contains it) at all (see the latest “Aoud Extraordinaire“)… Also the bottles from them decreased in quality.
Chanels new Superleggera also sounds super generic & not innovative at all on multiple honest reviews… like a more blue version of the previous Allure Homme Sports - sad !
Goes to show how prominent this matter is !
 

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