The fact that many original perfumes end up costing a lot
of money, sometimes being so expensive that most regular
people couldn’t even afford them, results in reasonable
questions such as: Why are they so expensive? Are they worth
it?
What most people who ask themselves such questions don’t
realize is the amount of work invested in that tiny bottle
they take off the self and put it back (or in a very special
place, at home). Of course, it would be unfair to say that a
certain percentage in that price isn’t there just because of
the name on the bottle, that the Hugo Boss perfumes would
cost and sell the same if they didn’t have a famous name on
the bottle, but to assume that it’s just the name that gives
the price is just as wrong. Thus, although people’s tastes
in this area differ a lot, they should know that price and
brand usually speak volumes about the quality of the product
and that if they have the opportunity to buy that product,
they will most likely be satisfied with their choice.
Although it may be try for somebody to imagine how hard
it is to make a successful perfume, try and think about it.
If you have experience in any product making it should be
easy enough. Try thinking about how hard it would be to make
something to suit your own tastes. Thinking of a real
product, preferably a complex one as perfumes are, you
should have plenty of characteristics in mind that have to
fit your preferences. Well, imagine having to match the
preferences of 10 people, then 100, then 1 billion. Imagine
all the work, all the market oriented research that should
be done before and after a beta version is produced. Imagine
all the struggle to find the right bottle, the right way to
promote it and so many other marketing tasks that must be
performed before you buy that one bottle of perfume.
Still, people will wander why they should pay for all
that marketing stuff, when all they’re interested in is the
perfume itself. That is a very good question, one that only
each person can answer. Depending on how important is
perfume to them will say yes or no, but let’s take a better
look at this issue.
Let’s assume you buy a $300 perfume that you can use for
a month. If you use your math skills you’ll soon discover
that you spend $1200 / year just for perfume. If you think
about it, that is indeed a pretty large amount of money if
you had it all at once. You could pay the rent with that
money; start paying installments for a better car, a better
house and so on and so forth. However, if you use your math
again, you’ll conclude that by buying a $300 bottle of
perfume / month, you spend $10 on perfume / day, the same
$10 you could be getting hot dogs, gum, tickets to a really
bad show and so on and so forth. Suddenly, perfume doesn’t
sound all that expensive, does it?
What you need to do in order to decide whether the
perfume is worth the money or not is to do the math and see
if the price you wind up paying per day is worth the
confidence, the drops of pleasure it adds to your life.
Sincerely,
