About selling fragrances online in the 2020’s

This week, the team at Joblux sat and talked about the booming high end scents market and the online selling perspectives with Sebastien Pagès; Head of e-commerce with Diptyque Paris.

Sebastien, you have 20 years of Digital experience in the luxury sector and are now  the head of digital & e-Commerce with prestigious perfume house Diptyque Paris. The first questions that comes to my mind is how is the high end scents market doing globally  ?

It’s going very well. Our clients come to diptyque because they want to stand out from the crowd with unique and a high end fragrances (home and body products)

The home scents performed well last year as one of a result of the multiple lockdowns we had to face in different countries. The trend shall continue over the next few months and hopefully, when the situation will be back to normal, we shall observe a better trend in personal fragrance.

Online business has seen a significant growth last year, and we worked at adding impactful services to make our clients life even more convenient.

What would be the biggest challenge when selling high end scents online ?

The biggest challenge is to offer a high end fragrance collection online considering that the client will obviously not be able to smell the product.
For example, regarding the fragrance category, we offer for each fragrance purchased, a matching sample. We call this service “Try before you Buy”.

The second challenge of selling scents online for a Maison like Diptyque, is to offer an online experience as close as possible from the boutique experience.

This is one of the main concerns of the digital team.

Globally, are some markets more responsive to others ? if yes, which ones ?

China obviously. They went through the pandemic in an impressive way.
We have also seen high growth in e-commerce in the US.

Diptyque Paris is celebrating its 60 th birthday in business this year. How do you explain the trend we are witnessing for candles ?

As a matter of fact, it’s been 60 years that diptyque is a high perfumery pioneer, mixing traditions and innovation. The Maison diptyque has always elaborated scented candles with the same requirement as we do to elaborate high perfumery fragrances.

The world is constantly changing, with a certain amount of uncertainty. The pandemic accelerated these changes. In an environment where uncertainty is a new normal, home is increasingly becoming a safe haven. Home scents improve this feeling of being in peace and relaxed.

Alternatively to the online selling, has the brick and mortar a significant future with Diptyque ? If yes, do you plan more store openings in the upcoming years ? Which markets are top priority ?

At diptyque, the business is omnichannel in a way how we work. One of my priority is actually to close the gap between retail and e-commerce, as both needs each other to perform.

Of course, in the addition of the digital experience, people will always need to live the real brand experience in stores, to smell the scents, to be advised… Coming to a diptyque boutique is always a unique experience for many reasons. Just go see one of our store window and enjoy.

By the way, there are lots of surprises to come this year online and in stores…

We will open new stores where we think there is a need to be closer to our clients.

About the skincare, are the dynamics the same for online selling as the scents ? Is a makeup line something Dyptique is considering ?

Yes, the dynamic is similar. We all want to take a little more care of ourselves these days.

What commitments to sustainability Diptyque has made so far ?

I am convinced that sustainability is the future for luxury industry but also for the digital business. For example, we are already reviewing the ecommerce packaging and how we can improve the shipments and returns by reducing the carbon impact;

From a product standpoint, loads of effort are made as well and our softening and exfoliating hand washes and velvet hand lotions are now available in refillable glass bottles. We plan to apply this eco-friendly approach to many other products in our range.

Many brands rely on technology innovation to make their products accessible online, is Diptyque in that path as well ? If yes, how ?

Absolutely, we are totally focused on innovation and client experience.

Since I joined the diptyque team in 2019, we opened more than 20 stores online. Today, the online offering is accessible from more than 30 countries.

During the past few months, our agile way of working, led the team to achieve impressive projects: For instance, we managed to open Japan, China and Hong Kong ecommerce websites. In the meantime, we optimized new services such as, click and reserve or same day delivery, in Europe and US.

We are also offering online Masterclasses where our experts invite you to discover the history and know-how of the diptyque Maison.

There are many others on going innovation projects, stay tuned…

Special thanks to: Sebastien Pagès : Executive Director, Global eCommerce and Digital at Diptyque Paris.

Photo: courtesy of Diptyque Paris