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Buy Wisely

post #1 of 6
6/10/07 at 7:33am
Thread Starter 
To all of those who are new to the world of scent appreciation / collecting:

Over the past couple years I have assembled a sizable collection of cologne. Most of my purchases were made "online". I've learned two important lessons - "be careful who you buy from" and "there is a wide variance in prices among legitimate sellers".

You will find Basenotes to be an excellent resource to help identify some of the "watch out for this guy" sellers. Searching the threads and posting questions / information will hopefully keep you from getting burned as many of us have in the past.

If you have the time and don't like to overpay for stuff you should comparison shop. It's very common to see a fragrance sold at one site for $45 and at another for $35...there is quite a lot of difference in pricing out there. This "hobby" can get expensive (if you let it) so anything you can do to minimize the costs will be a good thing for ya.

I recently organized my Favorites list on Internet Explorer and found that I had 54 online sites that I have visited or bought from, and I'm sure there are others I don't know about. A quick Google search will find many as you probably already know...

Have a great weekend all,

Mike
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post #2 of 6
6/10/07 at 9:32am
Something I would like to add is to TEST!!
Don't get caught up in the raving and reviews bottles get because we go through phases with each scent. Sometimes one scent will be mentioned 20 times in a month and people think they should go out and buy it blind. Test things first because the blind buy will put you in for a lot of money only to find the rare gem every now and then.

I have more scents that I don't like, due to buying blind, than I have that I love...
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post #3 of 6
6/10/07 at 11:19am
A great tool for buying online is www.froogle.com. Just type in whatever you're looking for & you'll get a list of websites that are selling the item, and their prices. Remember, though, that if something looks too good to be true than it probably is. If you do find a good deal from a website you're not familiar with, come back here & do a search for any threads mentioning the website. Someone might have posted feedback on their service.
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post #4 of 6
6/10/07 at 11:53am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by EnvYuS View Post

Something I would like to add is to TEST!!
Don't get caught up in the raving and reviews bottles get because we go through phases with each scent. Sometimes one scent will be mentioned 20 times in a month and people think they should go out and buy it blind. Test things first because the blind buy will put you in for a lot of money only to find the rare gem every now and then.

I have more scents that I don't like, due to buying blind, than I have that I love...

Excellent points. While it's "fun" in a way to buy blind, over time it'll probably start to feel as if you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find the prince (the holy grail of fragrances). Test whenever possible.

With regard to reviews, the Basenotes reviews are WORLD CLASS - but I have a hunch that there might be a "positive bias" at work in the sense that some people are more likely to take the time to review a fragrance that they like than they are to review one that they don't like as much. (When we come across something nice we want to spread the word so others can enjoy it too.) When the reviews are mostly positive on a scent it is easy to get caught up in the "herd mentality" and then rush out and buy a scent that you end up not wearing much. Let your nose make your buying decisions whenever possible...

Best regards,

Mike
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post #5 of 6
6/10/07 at 4:22pm
As I have said repeatedly, decants and samples are your BEST friend!
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post #6 of 6
6/10/07 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikey Q View Post

If you have the time and don't like to overpay for stuff you should comparison shop. It's very common to see a fragrance sold at one site for $45 and at another for $35...there is quite a lot of difference in pricing out there. This "hobby" can get expensive (if you let it) so anything you can do to minimize the costs will be a good thing for ya.


I forgot to mention that many, if not most of the online sellers have a mailing list. Sign up for those! You will get emails telling of their specials: free shipping, 10% off, and so on. Most of these guys give regular and significant discounts. Take advantage of those!

Many such discounts are posted on Basenotes, but they don't ALL get posted on our Board here so keep yourself directly in the discount loop...and when you find out about a new discount share the information with your fellow Basenoters.

Best regards,

Mike
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