Become an Independent South African Wholesale Perfume Entrepreneur
In South Africa, as elsewhere in the world of business, commerce and industry, there are various steps and processes that are followed to finally bring a product to the marketplace, ready to be sold to end-users – customers and consumers. However, here and for the moment, we’ll focus on those that are most prominent, significant and commonplace.
Profit: An Essential Business Principle
Every step of the way, keep in mind that the basis of every successful business is the selling of your goods (and services) at more than their total cost to you. If you don’t, your business will go under very quickly.
Consequently, every role player involved in every step of producing a product (or service), must calculate all costs before adding on a profit margin to arrive at a selling price, which they’ll charge the next link in the supply chain. Each additional link repeats this profit-adding practice, which represents its income and, essentially, its continued existence, growth and success.
The South African Scene
Let’s explore some of the fundamental steps involved in bringing products to market – manufacturing, packaging, branding, the wholesale function, distribution and/or relevant retail or alternative sales sectors, with particular reference to the perfume industry, especially its role in the South African perfume scene.
Raw Materials
Firstly, raw materials and botanical ingredients are grown and harvested when plants are at their best, enabling perfume oil extraction precisely at the time when plants are at their best in Europe’s floral kingdoms. Once ready, the raw material producer sells his products to a manufacturer – at a profit.
Design, Develop, Blend and Manufacture
The manufacturer produces the perfumes, according to a precise formula, designed, developed, and blended to produce the desired fragrance. It’s an art and a science, aided by the expertise of an experienced “Nose”, who is a professional perfume blender with an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell. Bottling and packaging in branded containers usually take place once manufacturing is completed. A profit margin is added again, and fragrances are ready to sell and supply to a wholesaler.
Wholesale
Typically, South African wholesalers buy, store and stock non-perishable products in bulk, which may give them a price advantage and help to prevent products from becoming totally unaffordable for the end-user – in this case, the ladies and gents who love wearing a quality, fine fragrance.
Every South African loves buying a treat, like a perfume, at a lower-than-normal wholesale price, because no additional or excessive retail mark-up is included. We don’t brand our company as a wholesale business, but our operation is similar, and we omit several steps in the usual fragrance supply chain.
Price-Reducing Points
- We import perfume formulations that were designed for big brands, but are not under contract, meaning that our fragrance quality is of similar or superior standards, but costing far less.
- Although chic and smart, our packaging is deliberately simple; customers want the fragrance, not fancy bottles and boxes.
- The entire, expensive retail cost factor is eliminated completely. We stop at wholesale
Papillon’s perfumes are distributed by freelance agents, who operate in their own time, when and where it suits them, depending on how much they wish to earn. Our affordable fragrances almost sell themselves, because prices are low, while quality remains outstanding. Join Papillon online; earn from your very first wholesale-priced sale onwards and become an independent South African entrepreneur.