Friday 24 August 2012

Don't pay full price for perfurmes, colognes or aftershaves

This is a post that will probably be more useful for the guys than for the girls simply because all the women I talked to already knew what I'm about to type below but for many of the guys it was a genuine realisation.

Traditionally brand name perfumes, aftershaves and colognes were very expensive to buy.  A small bottle would retail for hundreds of dollars and the price differential between the exclusive and standard brands was dramatic.  As a result, many of us (myself included) would hold off buying these until we were going travelling and then buy them duty free (as these types of products often attracted a significant amount of tax in most countries)

Chemists (US: drug stores) changed all of this when they started selling the high end brands for discounted prices

Most of use would have seen the price of perfumes and aftershaves drop dramatically over the last 5 years as chemists started selling high end perfumes for a fraction of their previous retail price.  If you go into the department stores you will still find them selling at the high prices but in the chemists they are often 20% - 40% cheaper.

The result is that if you have walked past a specialist perfume shop you will notice that most of the time it is empty and if there are people in there it is often a hapless male looking for a perfume for his wife or girlfriend.

However not all brands made it into the chemists.  Some brands put some of their range into the chemists (presumably to get customers to try them out) and kept selling their higher end products at the premium prices.  This was true of my preferred cologne which is Ralph Lauren Polo Black - the chemists only sold the regular Polo aftershave range and I had to resort to paying $120 for a small bottle of it from the airport.

This constantly bugged me until I discovered there is a cheap alternative (which doesn't involve you having to travel or line up at duty free stores).

Online retailers charge significantly less for these products

Recently I was introduced to StrawberryNET, an online retailer of skincare, makeup, haircare and fragrances.  All the women I know have heard of and use this site regularly - if you go to the site you can see why very few men would have ever clicked into it.

Guys - this site can save you HEAPS of money on your high end colognes and aftershaves.  Whereas I would normally spend $120 on my Ralph Lauren Polo Black - StrawberryNet has it on sale for
 $82 (a saving of over 30%!).  Even better - there are NO shipping charges and it arrives very quickly (under a week usually).

The downside to this site is that you need to know EXACTLY what you are looking for.  Products are sorted by brands and there is no recommendations and description section.  If you do have a preferred brand (like I do) though it is awesome!

As an aside - I am not part of the StrawberryNet affiliate programme nor do I make any money from recommending them (or from you clicking the links) - I just thought it was a great site and I have saved money from it too.

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