My First Week at Liberty
Catch Me If I Fall made its debut at the storied Regent Street department store this week, and this is how it went
Here are a few little snippets from my first week selling Catch Me If I Fall at Liberty:
Our first customer happened to be passing through the perfumery (ground floor) just as the staff were talking about the fragrance, spritzing it into the air. It wasn’t officially on sale yet, so he came back specially the following day when it was available. He bought it for himself, and I love that. I never gave a thought about whether it’s “for women” or “for men” - that’s always seemed nonsensical to me in perfumery. This particular customer was visiting from the Middle East and loves the fragrance because while it has a beautifully warming base of sandalwood and cedarwood, it is also so refreshing. I wasn’t there when he bought it, so I didn’t get to meet him, but I will be forever indebted to him for knowing so precisely what he wants. (Incidentally, my first customer online back when we launched in September was also male - although I don’t know whether he was buying it for himself or for someone else).
The sales team at Liberty are doing everything they can to support La Pyae, knowing that as a small brand with just one product, it’s sometimes hard to make an impression among all the great and the good (especially those with deeper pockets than ours) fighting for attention. I was thrilled to see we’d been given a little table all to ourselves, so off I went to Wild At Heart, the in-store florist (the founder Nikki Tibbles is a close personal friend) to talk flowers and table dressing with the really talented team there. Amelia helped me arrange the table - I wanted a jasmine plant because there is jasmine in the fragrance, and then we went for flowers that matched the colours of the sunsets in Myanmar, inspired by one of our postcards that features a photo of Ngwe Saung Beach. To create some height differentials, we popped one of the vases on top of a pile of my mother’s memoir, A World Overturned. The table looked so pretty.
We don’t really discount (bar online for subscribers to our newsletter) or give free gifts with purchase, but interestingly, quite a few customers were curious about my mother’s book, and this being summer and people starting to go on holiday, we decided to offer up A World Overturned to them as a free gift, while stocks last. It’s proving really popular, which was a nice surprise. As it was the inspiration for the fragrance, it is really fitting, and I’m glad my mother can be with me on this adventure, at least in spirit. Incidentally, we do have a few copies left, so please do ask for one if you’re buying a bottle at Liberty.
One of the biggest surprises to me in setting up a business is just how lonely it can be - there’s no one to really talk things through or brainstorm with or be excited about your successes when you’re doing well, or for that matter commiserate when things don’t turn out quite according to plan. Well suddenly, I have staff! Not mine, they’re Liberty’s and work across all the brands there, but it’s been so much fun getting to know everyone in the Perfumery dept. They’ve all been so supportive, encouraging and enthusiastic and I’ve really enjoyed slowly (it’s been just one week!) getting to know them. The longest serving member of staff has been there 26 years, another 20 years, and I’m humbled by just how well they know their business. They’re obsessed with perfume as you might expect, but really enjoy the process of getting to know their customers and what suits them. I asked them what the key is to selling a new fragrance, from a brand no one has heard of before, and one of them said, “It’s all about the story.” Luckily, we have plenty of that.
HELLO LIBERTY CUSTOMERS! It’s such a joy to meet you too - in real life. Thank you to the wonderful customer from Australia on a visit home to the UK to her sister’s wedding, who has chosen Catch Me If I Fall for that special occasion. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve been given, from Kenneth Green, who is the founder of the UK’s biggest perfume distribution company, was to “keep as close as you can to your customer, don’t let anything get between you” - by which he means get to know them. I answer all my customer emails personally, and it’s been a joy to learn via email how happy Catch Me If I Fall makes them, but to be able to meet my customers in real life is even more thrilling. I hope to do more events soon in the beautiful fragrance room kept for Concierge appointments, in the lower ground floor perfumery. Watch this space.
Another learning: my customers often pop in to see what’s new at Liberty, just because it’s such a beautiful store, and the buy and the service are consistently so good, but they also come because they’ve been inspired by things they’ve read or seen. This week’s top “refer-ee” was journalist Sali Hughes - one member of staff told me that quite a few people had come in and mentioned in passing to the sales consultants that Sali was the reason they’d swung by. This makes me really happy - Sali is such a highly regarded journalist and friend, and while I knew already she was a fan of the fragrance (she has posted about it on Instagram), to know her influence is so far-reaching even a few months on from that original post reassures me that people really appreciate quality journalism and content creation.
After our first week, I’m thrilled with our sales, which have been really high, I believe we are already at the re-order stage, which is fabulous. But it is daunting… we have a long way to go! I’m encouraged by the fact that at the moment we are positioned in store quite close to Escentric Molecules, which started out life in 2006 with just one sku - their best selling Escentric 01. All these years on, it’s still a Liberty best seller, if not the best seller, which just goes to show that a small but clearly defined product can capture everyone’s imagination in a way that a line of six, eight, ten fragrances might not.
I think that’s it for now - we have lots planned for the near future, but please do email me or Liberty if you’d like to meet there and I can tell you the story behind our beautiful fragrance in person.
info@lapyae.com or comment below!
THANK YOU!
Next week: I’ll be back to writing about beauty, specifically wellness, and posting about cortisol and how to reduce it.