Fragrances online: how to sell something people cannot smell

Two messages reach many small perfume brands: "How long does it last?" and "Is it like the one my brother wears?" Neither can be answered through a screen, so the full bottle sits in the cart and does not sell. Replace the counter tester with three things. A small vial or discovery set the buyer can try on their own skin for little money. Notes described as smells people already know, not a perfumer's pyramid. And the occasion and weather each scent suits. Then let the vial sell the bottle.

Write khus, not "top notes of vetiver"

The note pyramid was written for perfumers, and for buyers standing at a counter with a paper strip. Online it is a list of words most people cannot smell in their head. Plenty of buyers have no idea what bergamot is and know exactly what a freshly cut lime smells like.

Indian buyers already carry a scent vocabulary. Use it. Vetiver is khus, the smell of a wet cooler pad in the summer heat. Jasmine is mogra, the gajra at a wedding. Tuberose is rajnigandha. Sandalwood is chandan paste. Agarwood is oud, which many buyers know from attar shops already. The smell of first rain on dry earth even has its own attar, mitti, distilled in Kannauj. Write the everyday word first and put the perfumer's word in brackets after it.

The scent card: one template for every product page

Give every fragrance the same short card, in the same order, so a buyer can compare two scents side by side on a phone.

• Opens with: what the buyer smells in the first minutes.
• After an hour: what it settles into on skin.
• By evening: what is left, and how close to the skin it sits.
• Wear it to: two or three real occasions.
• Weather: humid heat, an air-conditioned office, winter evenings.
• Strength: close to the skin, noticed in a room, or noticed across one.
• If you like: a family of smells you already know, never a brand name.
• Not for you if: the one thing that puts people off it.

Here it is filled in for an invented scent.

• Opens with: cut lime and a little black pepper.
• After an hour: khus and clean cotton.
• By evening: a soft woody trace, close to the skin.
• Wear it to: office days, a lunch meeting, a long train journey.
• Weather: humid heat. It fades fast in dry winter air.
• Strength: noticed by someone sitting next to you.
• If you like: fresh citrus deodorants and the smell of a khus cooler.
• Not for you if: you want people to notice you entering a room.

"Not for you if" is the line that sells.

Small sizes do the counter's job

A 2 ml vial, or a discovery set of four or five scents, is your online tester. Charge for it. A paid set keeps out people collecting freebies, and a buyer who paid a little tries every vial with attention.

Put a code in the box that takes the set's price off the first full bottle. The set stops being a cost and becomes the first step of a sale, and the code tells you which vial turned into a bottle. From there, the path is short steps: vial, then a 30 ml bottle, then the 100 ml, then a gift box when the festival season comes round. Each step is a smaller decision than buying the big bottle cold.

Shipping needs thought before you promise delivery everywhere. Perfume is alcohol-based and flammable, and couriers have their own rules for carrying it, so check yours. Vials also need caps that do not loosen in a hot delivery van.

Longevity and strength: say less, show more

"Lasts 12 hours" is a claim nobody can make for every skin. A buyer in Chennai and a buyer in Shimla will wear the same bottle very differently. Use the strength line on the card instead. Then tell buyers what they control: apply after a bath, on pulse points, and on clothes only where the liquid will not mark the fabric.

Be careful with comparisons. "Inspired by" or "smells like" followed by a famous brand's name raises trademark questions that depend on the case, so check with your own adviser before you use one. Describe the family instead: fresh and watery, warm amber, green and leafy.

For example: an attar house from Kannauj

Imagine a family attar business in Kannauj (invented) that moved online with forty attars. Each was listed under its traditional name, Shamama, Hina, Gulab, Mitti, with one line of description and a 10 ml bottle as the smallest size. Buyers who grew up with attar ordered without help. Younger buyers in Bengaluru and Pune, used to spray perfume, kept sending the same two questions. Which one is like a perfume? Which one is not too strong? Most of them never ordered: on invented figures, roughly one in ten enquiring buyers, against the regulars who ordered without asking.

The house kept all forty and added a front door. A starter set of five 2 ml rollers, chosen for people new to attar: mitti, gulab, khus, chandan and one modern blend. Each got the scent card above, and the occasion and weather lines did most of the selling. The set's price came off the first 10 ml bottle. The full list stayed on the site for buyers who already knew their Shamama from their Hina. Newcomers started with the set. The regulars ignored it, which was exactly right.

What to do next

Write the scent card for your best seller and show it to someone who has never smelled the perfume. Ask them where they would wear it. If their answer matches yours, the card works; if not, rewrite the "opens with" line in plainer words. Then price a starter set against what it costs you to fill, pack and post. Attar, oud and gift boxes each need their own card within selling beauty and fragrance online; if you want help with the cards, the set and the path to the full bottle through upselling and cross-selling, tell us what you need.