When buying a fragrance, I often go to Amazon. However, I saw that all fragrances have a lot of different price listings, so I wondered, are they real?
Are fragrances on Amazon real? Fragrances sold directly by Amazon are by no means fake. However, Amazon allows third parties to sell on their platform, which can lead to some people selling fake fragrances for a cheaper price. So when you’re shopping fragrances on Amazon, make sure to purchase them directly from Amazon, just to be sure.
If you go to Amazon and look up fragrances, you’ll notice that they are cheaper than usual. How are they able to offer a lower price than most other fragrance sellers?
Fragrances On Amazon
Amazon sells almost everything in the world, this includes fragrances. Whichever fragrance you want, Amazon probably has it. But, when you look up a certain fragrance, you’ll see multiple different offers, for multiple different prices, all lower than the original retail price. How can Amazon do this?
On the other hand, there are definitely counterfeit fragrances on Amazon. Multiple reviews state that something is off about the fragrance. Either the bottle itself feels off, or it feels like a watered down version of the fragrance. Watering it down can generate huge profits for the seller but at the cost of the buyer. So if you ever bought a counterfeit fragrance from Amazon, make sure to report them immediately, Amazon does not like it when their sellers sell counterfeit products.
Fragrances get created by scent manufacturers, not the brands themselves. For example, Yves Saint Laurent does not create ‘La Nuit De l’homme’, they rather purchase it from a scent company, put their logo on it and name it. This means everyone can purchase the bottle that smells like ‘La Nuit De l’homme’, but without the Yves Saint Laurent logo on it. The main difference between these two bottles will be that the one Yves Saint Laurent bought is ‘authentic’, and the other one is not. However, this does not mean it is a fake or counterfeit.
Amazon allows third parties to sell on their platform. Anyone can sign up for this. There are two options, sell as an individual or sell as professional. There are fees with this. Because anyone can sign up and sell on Amazon, there will be people who want to scam you or sell counterfeits. Now, Amazon is very strict in this, but sometimes someone who sells counterfeits slips through the cracks and can sell fake fragrances. There really isn’t much you can do about it, other than making sure from who you purchase your fragrance.
When you’re buying a fragrance from Amazon, just make sure that it is either from Amazon directly, or check the reviews. Fragrance lovers are very honest people and when a fragrance they bought feels off, they don’t hesitate to complain about them. Check the reviews and see what they’re like.
How Can Amazon Keep Low Prices
Probably everyone knows Amazon by now. It is the biggest e-commerce platform in the world and sells about 300 items per second.
As you’ve probably noticed, Amazon can sell their products for a lot cheaper than retail price. Amazon is able to do this because of a few reasons. First, Amazon is an online shop (they are starting to open physical stores), which means they have no physical stores. The costs of physical stores are much higher than the costs of a warehouse, where Amazon stores their products. Also, Amazon buys their products directly from the source, meaning no middle man, meaning fewer costs, meaning the same profit can be achieved for a lower price.
When you have a physical store, you have to pay for light, electricity, employees, test products, and much more. All these costs add up when calculating the retail price for a product. For this reason, the products in physical store will be somewhat higher than the prices in, for example, Amazon.
Amazon stores their products in warehouses. This cuts of a lot of costs that would come when they opened a physical store. Because there are fewer costs, the price can be a bit lower as well, which in turn, brings in more customers. Genius right?
Amazon also uses dynamic pricing. With this approach, e-commerce sites, like Amazon, can set flexible prices, taking into account a few metrics like costs, profit, prices of others and the demand. This enables them to set just the right price for a product, basing it of the real-time demand. This approach gives you a really good grip on the market while serving your customers right and improving business goals. The one downside to this approach is that you have to have a whole lot of data, or you cannot make educated price changes. For Amazon, this isn’t a problem.
Amazon updates her prices every 10 minutes, updating it to all possible factors, like season, demand and other prices. This is also why pointing to a specific price on Amazon is almost impossible, as it will most definitely change sometime.
Which Brands Are Most Likely To Have Counterfeits
Fragrances that are the most popular are also the ones that have the most counterfeits. This is because there is a huge demand for these, or they are really expensive. Remember, for the people selling the counterfeits, it’s about money. If a lot of people want it, they can sell a lot. Or if a fragrance is really expensive and has an established name, like Creed Aventus, they can take some huge margins. So especially with the popular ones, be careful.
First, I want to mention Creed Aventus. This is a very expensive, but great smelling fragrance. It would be devastating if you buy this one, only to find out it is a counterfeit. When buying this one, please make sure to buy one from a legit source.
Others to watch out for are the more popular fragrances from big brands, like Dior Sauvage. This fragrance gained a lot of popularity in the last couple of years. Mostly because of its versatility. Others to watch out for are fragrances from brands like Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Dior or Giorgio Armani. Fragrances like these are in high demand, mainly for their versatility, niche use or overall greatness. I personally own fragrances of all of these brands and can’t imagine not having them available to me.
How To Quickly Spot Fake Sellers
- The very first thing to check is the price. If this seems to good to be true, it usually is. You can always check the retail price at the site of the brand you’d like to buy a fragrance from.
- If the spelling and grammar are odd, this can be a bad sign. Also, if the name of the seller looks really weird, be cautious.
- Bad reviews. Probably the easiest way to check for counterfeits. Although, sometimes people are not happy with the product, or it didn’t meet their expectations, and they leave a bad review or calling it a fake.
- Check the seller. Is it Amazon itself? Or is it a third party. A lot of companies sell their products through Amazon as another marketplace. Some people just sell their stuff as they do on eBay. Products that are ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ are usually the real ones. These products have been shipped to Amazon warehouses and have been checked. Amazon will quickly resolve any issues these products may have.
Related Questions
Should you buy fragrances from Amazon? I’d say yes, Amazon is as of this moment the biggest e-commerce platform in the world. They have almost everything you could think of, including fragrances. These are mostly offered for a bit of a cheaper price than in the retail. Because of this and because there are a lot of genuine sellers, I’d say you should definitely buy your fragrances on Amazon.