We Name the UK’s Top Online Perfume Retailers

It should come as no surprise to most that perfume sales in the UK is big business. According to Mintel data published by the Fragrance Foundation, back in 2007, annual sales were estimated at £998 million (£638m for women and £360m for men) and growing each year.

Obviously the nature of perfume is such that only a very small percentage of sales is online – after all, how many people buy perfume for the first time without smelling it. However, if you already know exactly what you’re looking for (e.g. buying an old favourite for yourself or as a gift) then online is usually the best place to shop. It’s convenient, prices are very competitive, and you can often find fragrances that are no longer stocked on the high street.

In terms of the high street, retailers like Boots and The Perfume Shop are the first names that come to mind when you think perfume but we were interested to see which online retailers were most popular with visitors to our site and how they compared to the high street so we did a little survey. Here are the results based on 1700 responses.

1. Boots
2. Fragrance Direct
3. The Perfume Shop
4. CheapSmells
5. Debenhams
6. Amazon
   Superdrug
7. Half Price Perfumes
8. John Lewis
9. The Fragrance Shop
10. House of Fraser
11. eBay
12. Perfume Point
13. Extrascents
    Feelunique
14. The Body Shop
    Perfume Plus Direct
15. Scentsations
16. Avon
    StrawberryNet
17. Fragrance Online
    Supaperfume
    The Perfume Superstore
18. Selfridges
19. Duty Free Perfume
    Jo Malone
    OnlinePerfume
20. Escentual
    Forget Flowers
    Harrods
    Look Fantastic
    Scentstore
    Tesco
21. Argos
    ASOS
    Beauty Base
    Beauty Bay
    Fragrance X
    Garden Pharmacy
    Mankind
    Next
    Ormond Jayne

We also gather visitor information on perfume shops via our price comparison site so we were expecting to see Fragrance Direct and CheapSmells at the top of the list, especially since they offer some of the best prices online. However, while they were both in the top 5 based on our survey, we were a little surprised to find that Boots still managed to come out on top especially since they sell most of their perfumes at RRP. It just goes to show the strength of the Boots brand and the fact that when shopping online, brand recognition and trust are often more important that price alone.

Somebody Out There Likes Us

We’re quite proud of Perfume Fairy, our little perfume price comparison site but hey, as you would expect, we’re biased. But it turns out that somebody else likes us too as we’ve been nominated as a finalist in this year’s Digital Entrepreneur Awards.

It seems that’s quite an achievement in itself as they received a record number of entrants this year and only 5% made the grade. Winners will be announced on December the 1st so here’s hoping. You can read all about this year’s event and see the full list of finalists here.