The debate among industry operators has become increasingly heated in recent months
official dealers on one side and distributors/producers on the other, on how much more or less "extended" this market of niche or artistic perfumes should be, that is, which and how many brands niche perfumeries should have rather than how many and which customers in a city or region a Brand should have.
The "fuse"
this debate follows an almost "monster" series of perfumery openings throughout Italy in recent months, a truly impressive number, only in Campania, our reference region, there have been ten. And all or more or less all have had free access to almost all the brands available on the market, without apparent filter or anything else.
The debate is so heated that the very meaning of the existence of a fair like Exsence is being questioned, which is anything but inaccessible or exclusive, and even polite and firm comments on Facebook are being censored where people try to clarify the meaning of words.
Our Position
We at Alla Violetta Boutique have a vision all our own, for us perfumery is perfumery, for ease of understanding of operators and customers we have always labeled perfumes as artistic or niche to distinguish them from those present in shopping centers and large-scale distribution.
The Problem
But what happens if these same perfumes today or soon appear in these types of retailers? What happens if there are more perfumeries than delicatessens and everyone can have everything? And the same artistic or hybrid perfumeries (half commercial assortment and half niche) now include in their online catalogs anything, no filter, no control neither on the products nor on who produces them... fundamental things to guarantee the end customer.
To make matters worse...
The worst of the worst in this situation is when you see them, on both sides, waving the flags of artistic, exclusivity, selective and then in the practice of actions they do exactly the opposite. They use the products as "stickers" exchanging everything with everyone rather than putting 8/10 dealers of brands in a single city as is happening in Naples with some of them... Basically we are faced with the greatest of enigmas... which came first, the chicken or the egg?
As far as we are concerned, we will approach our reference market in the usual professional manner, verifying each time the single new Brands and products, no matter how much the market and or our customers may "ask" for them, if they don't work for us... they just don't work. Unlike those that we can consider competitors but it would be better to say many colleagues, we will continue to "cut out" and exclude those Brands that have transformed themselves into commercial ones due to market evidence, and not because they have become such (we have many clearly hyper-distributed ones) but rather because they try to dress themselves in an aura of exclusivity and selectivity or artisticity that is no longer empirically found in reality . I
We close some collaborations
In this sense, we have already said goodbye at the end of last year to brands such as Orto Parisi, Nasomatto, The Spirit of Dubai, Ojar, Ghawali, Nishane, Electimuss and others who will come in the coming weeks. We thank them for the more or less long period of collaboration but we have "divergent" visions of perfumes, at least at this moment, of the market, and certainly also of life.
New Horizons
We will also continue to select brands and suppliers that can offer very high standards for our customers and that minimum of exclusivity that can reassure them (both from the online store and the physical ones) that they are using at least one "different" perfume... And differently from the past, from the beginning of artistic or niche perfumery or however you want to label it, where everything was focused on the "different and better" product, as already said we will pay more attention to the people we interface with, namely owners of brands, distributors and agents if present, our internal collaborators... I'm not saying that they have to share the same vision of work and the market but of life a little bit... We are all free to live as we want, but after so many years I understand that what I really can't tolerate is "greed", the desire to gobble up everything and everyone until almost (unfortunately) exploding. No, this is just not right, I believe in a growth and development model balanced in the parts and in respect of our end customer... Customer who must not be a "bomber" for us, but a normal person who has one or more passions that we try to cultivate and defend for what concerns us, God forbid that he could leave us for the continuous nonsense that he must hear in the last months / years then periodically denied by what he sees. Half of Europe of Artistic perfumery is now aligned on a standard assortment equal from the department stores of Milan to those of Amsterdam which is the same as the niche shops of practically all of Europe.. this is just not right..
