Logistics and Distribution
Freight charges will be levied for the cargo delivery of packed cartons of perfume pens according to the existing rates, which would depend on the mode of transportation: sea or air, the weight, the volume, and whether shipped as a single container or by sharing with other cargo.
The perfume pens imported from France can be sold and distributed in the destination market of Vancouver through various channels. According to the IMMR, about 85% of the sales of cosmetics and toiletries to Canadian consumers are through retail channels like drug stores, departmental stores, mass merchandisers and food stores. A Google search lists some of the perfume distributors serving the retail markets in Vancouver.
Distributors: The major perfume distributors serving the Vancouver area include:
- Cosmolane, which are distributors for brands like Orlane, Annayake and Rubis
- Scorpio, which are distributors for Diesel, Emporio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and to global inflight retail market
- Globex, which are distributors for Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna and Kenzo
- Charmei Marketing Corp. and Town Distributors are also in the perfumes distribution business
It must be mentioned that e-commerce can also be an effective direct marketing strategy to cater to the internet-savvy consumers. However, the IMMR warns that the consumer would still have to pay Canadian taxes and customs duties if the value of the postal or courier import exceeds the maximum permissible value.
Based on the above preliminary research, it can be concluded that the French manufacturer of perfume pens, Sensrise would need a comprehensive research to devise an effective marketing strategy for selling its innovative and attractive perfume pens to the Canadian consumers.
Place
The place is one of the main marketing mix concepts as it determines success of the product launch and further sales. The perfume pen is a products which be considered as a unique one appealing to a limited number of customers. Product characteristics will help to determine the most favorable design and type of placement system. The ability of perfume pen such to absorb costs is particularly important. Perfume pen is a high-value item so it will be heavily stocked by companies. For many companies product place promotion is a modest amount of the total price. The place will be geared to the optimization of the system as a whole rather than of any part of it. To achieve this requires analysis of the total characteristics of place, for changes leading to cost reductions or improved services in one part of the place often result in increased costs in other parts (Bearden et al 2004).
The main places for perfume pen will be near cash desks. The idea is to persuade consumers to buy immediately and try the product at once. In this case, the communications process is concerned with the dissemination of stimuli and customers’ perception, impact, use, and effectiveness. Immediate purchase communications have meaning to the extent that an individual’s predisposition or experience permits him to see, hear, or read them. Two predispositional factors govern the relationship between a message and its recipient. These are the sender set and the customer set. The former includes media, appeal, advertiser, copy, theme, and layout. The latter, containing the individual differences of people and their psychological, social, and economic situations, intervenes between the sender and the receiver of promotion information. It is not only the message, but also the way in which it is presented, that results in communications. Both the source of the communication and the message itself can influence the reactions of the recipient. Credible sources tend to get better acceptance. The adverts will demonstrate the impressive pictures of the perfume pen and its benefits for consumers (Sevier 2005).
The impulse purchase items such as a perfume pen can bear these costs more easily than can low-value items such as lumber and coal. Variations in lines and such features as packaging, color, size, style, and variety place a heavy burden on the distribution system. Now more products have to be handled with lower volume per item and higher costs of storage, inventory, and handling. Advertisement costs, distant locations, and time are barriers to the development of markets. Through physical distribution, costs are reduced and time and geographic barriers are hurdled, thereby enabling companies to cultivate additional markets profitably (Sevier 2005). Demand characteristics are directly related to physical-distribution systems. The idea of the promotion is to create a demand and pursued potential buyer to try a product. Memory experience will help to create a demand for product. Where demand is extensively variable, then distribution facilities are usually concentrated in fewer locales. A highly variable need for purchase makes it difficult to design effective physical-distribution systems and control costs, while a stable demand permits it. In between two extremes, where demand patterns can be discerned through analysis, as with seasonal products, reasonable distributions systems may be approximated.
It is assumed that customers are particularly interested in customer life styles the way people individualize and identify themselves as members of various groups, and the resulting patterns of living. Although the stores have gathered and analyzed data on consumer incomes, age groups, and expenditure patterns for decades, the goal is not one of assembling statistics for the sake of statistical data. Rather, it is to translate statistical data about consumers into models of consumer life styles that will permit them to understand and predict consumer and buyer behavior (Kotler and Armstrong 2006).
Another strategy used for place is opinion leaders. This strategy in marketing is more socially active and gregarious than those who are not. Highly sociable women who have a large number of friends and belong to several organizations are more likely to be marketing opinion leaders. This relationship holds true for marketing leaders of each life-cycle type. A related but distinct concept from the opinion leader is the gatekeeper, a buyer (or buyers) in a position to control the flow of information and/or goods into a household or firm. An example would be the housewife who, when she sees a new coffee on the grocer’s shelf, can decide whether to take it home then or whether to carry the information to her family or to an opinion leader. Although an opinion leaders and a gatekeeper can be the same person, often they are not, and in order to impact an opinion leader, marketers often must first get through this conceptual gate (Sevier 2005).
The design of place for the perfume pen requires bright colors and adverts to attract attention of customers. It requires the identification of physical-distribution activities and their related costs, the development of cost information and cost estimates, and the analysis of system performance under various conditions. In principle, location decisions should be made on the basis of expected profits in relation to investments — a marginal approach to alternative locations. In stores, decisions are generally made on a less-than-optimal basis. The dispersion of their ideas is of decided interest to marketers in understanding the purchase, acquisition, and consumption behavior of various market segments.
References
Bearden, W. O., Ingram, Th. N., LaForge, L.W. (2004). Marketing, Prentice Hall.
Kotler, Ph., Armstrong, G. (2006). Principles of Marketing. Prentice Hall; 11th edition.
Sevier, R.A. (2005). How to Build Support for brand Marketing. Marketing.