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Bond No. 9 and Creed hit the Discounters - Bloom Officially off the Brand Rose

post #1 of 24
1/23/13 at 2:10am
Thread Starter 
Well it was really just a matter of time,looks like our friends at Bond No.9 and Creed have finally succumb to what is probably a large unsold stock,shrinking margins and faded hype and have begun selling at Winners (Canadian branch of TJ Maxx). Visiting a location I was surrounded by unsold "niche" from these two brands. There's quite a few Love in Blacks, Royal Water, Himalayas, Washington Square, Bleecker St, I Love NY, etc unsold at 149.99 for 100 mL. I might wait for them to hit clearance and pick up a Himalaya.

I think we can officially say about Creed and Bond that, ironically after Andy Warhol, their 15 minutes are up. It's invariably a sign of brand decline when they succumb to the temptation to hock their wares downmarket, witness Levis and Wamart or the Gap in the 80's before Mickey Drexler. The quality soon follows suit, goes to pot and then sayonara sales. I remember Chandler Burr putting it best cruising through a supermarket in the perfumes section saying "if you're Tommy Hilfiger and your product is here, you're trying to make money,if you're Chanel and you're here? You call your lawyers." Lol

It was bound to happen, these two brands especially had perhaps the most transparently inauthentic and tacky marketing hype ever seen in the industry (anyone else remember the obnoxious cards at the Creed counters indicating which celebrities wear their scents *gag*). But hey if you're a fan of Bond or Creed they're coming to,or may be at a discounter near you, look for them next to the Stetson and Old Spice!
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post #2 of 24
1/23/13 at 2:14am
The odd thing is that Bleecker and Washington Square are some of the best Bonds. Go figure that the best aren't selling, while the dreck is.
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post #3 of 24
1/23/13 at 2:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarquisdeSod View Post

Well it was really just a matter of time...

can you please tell us which location was it ? or at least which city?
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post #4 of 24
1/23/13 at 5:17am
i could care less about brand reputation, image, and exclusivity. If this means I can get my hands on some bottles of fragrances i like for less money, then Im all for it.
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post #5 of 24
1/23/13 at 6:28am
$149.99 is a long way from $29.99. I can wait.
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post #6 of 24
1/23/13 at 7:49am
Could they be fakes?
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post #7 of 24
1/23/13 at 9:26am
If it's really a TJ Maxx/Marshall's outlet or affiliate, a fake is extremely unlikely.

This isn't all that surprising to me. I've seen Creeds at overstock.com for quite a while. Besides, the price point is still holding up. I presume you mean the 4 oz size is $149.00, which really isn't that great a price. You can beat it for most Creeds, for example, if you use the basenotes code at fragrancex.com.

And as far as their "15 minutes" being up, nope. As long as Creed still makes scents that smell better than the competition -- at any price -- they'll hold up. I'd love to find a cheaper version of GIT, VIW, or MI, but I've tried almost all the alternatives, and nothing beats the originals.

If GIT flooded into TJ Maxx at $99.00 for 4 oz., I'd be stunned.

I wish Creed published a list of its best sellers by name, but I would imagine that's a closely guarded trade secret.
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post #8 of 24
1/23/13 at 10:10am
About time!
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post #9 of 24
1/23/13 at 10:43am
Interesting, although $149 is not that great of a price, i'll check my local Winners today anyways. Will report back later.
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post #10 of 24
1/23/13 at 11:01am
Somewhere, Coco Chanel is walking through a sunlit field of roses, smiling and laughing quietly to herself.
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post #11 of 24
1/23/13 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SculptureOfSoul View Post

The odd thing is that Bleecker and Washington Square are some of the best Bonds. Go figure that the best aren't selling, while the dreck is.

Yeah. I wonder what's really going on there. I'm having trouble imagining $150 bottles of perfume selling at places where people expect to see $20 perfume. Sure, we know names like Creed and Bond, but we're not the typical discount perfume shopper.
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post #12 of 24
1/23/13 at 11:53am
Here is the story: the only market segment that is growing during this extended downturn is the very top of the market. If your company makes or sells a $5000 handbag, you will do just fine. If you sell a $49.00 handbag, your company will struggle, because the people that buy $49.00 handbags live in a world where wages and income have been stagnant (or declined relative to inflation) for over a decade with no hope whatsoever of improvement in the near term. The discounters have realized this and are attempting to snap up a piece of the luxury action to keep their sales figures (and consequently, their share prices) growing. They simply can't grow if they only draw in the penny pinching middle class bargain hunters who are stuck in underwater mortgages. Those people, who fueled retail sales figures from the mid 90's-2008, are now tapped out.

So whereas 5 years ago it would have been unheard of for TJMaxx to try and sell a $149 dollar fragrance, post economic collapse it is now a lifeboat.

Should it work, you can be sure that TJMaxx will begin to elevate the price points and the mix of product they offer to attract a more lucrative clientele and you can be sure that Bond and Creed will push their MSRP up another $75-$100 at the high end doors to keep their numbers growing and looking good.
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post #13 of 24
1/23/13 at 12:12pm
The Winners in Heartland had New Haarlem on sale for $159.99. They had other Bond No.9's and some Creeds there too.
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post #14 of 24
1/23/13 at 12:16pm
la2000 has the right idea

as a wise mentor told me:

"if you want to succeed in business, sell necessities the poor can afford or luxuries the well-off want to buy, because there sure ain't a middle class anymore"
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post #15 of 24
1/23/13 at 12:25pm
Oops
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post #16 of 24
1/23/13 at 1:02pm
I would have expected this with Bond.
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post #17 of 24
1/23/13 at 1:30pm
Bottom line, if it doesn't sell through at $149.99, they will ask for markdown money from their supplier. If it doesn't sell at the markdown, they will return for full credit.

Nothing ventured for them and yet everything gained.

My guess, this is Gray market stuff very much on the order of other discounters.
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post #18 of 24
1/23/13 at 2:17pm
...
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post #19 of 24
1/23/13 at 2:21pm
If you are making so much product that it is making its way to every grey market shop and now a gigantic chain of discount retailers then that means you are a very successful company.
If you thought that Bond or Creed were some type of luxury product then it just show that you were fooled by their marketing.
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post #20 of 24
1/23/13 at 3:00pm
I've seen a ton of bonds and some creeds at the Toronto College station winners, if you're looking. Though still not as cheap as buying from fragrance net etc. I've noticed winners selling some more expensive products lately, like Boss blazers that retail for 600 going for 300, among other things. I also saw L'Artisan there, though nothing I was particularly interested in.
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post #21 of 24
1/23/13 at 5:31pm
Nothing at my local Winners, just the same old Brittney Spears, Ed Hardy crap.
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post #22 of 24
1/23/13 at 6:35pm
bleecker and himalaya are niches i would def pick up small bottles of on discount
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post #23 of 24
1/23/13 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA2000 View Post

Here is the story: the only market segment that is growing during this extended downturn is the very top of the market. If your company makes or sells a $5000 handbag, you will do just fine. If you sell a $49.00 handbag, your company will struggle, because the people that buy $49.00 handbags live in a world where wages and income have been stagnant (or declined relative to inflation) for over a decade with no hope whatsoever of improvement in the near term. The discounters have realized this and are attempting to snap up a piece of the luxury action to keep their sales figures (and consequently, their share prices) growing. They simply can't grow if they only draw in the penny pinching middle class bargain hunters who are stuck in underwater mortgages. Those people, who fueled retail sales figures from the mid 90's-2008, are now tapped out.

So whereas 5 years ago it would have been unheard of for TJMaxx to try and sell a $149 dollar fragrance, post economic collapse it is now a lifeboat.

Should it work, you can be sure that TJMaxx will begin to elevate the price points and the mix of product they offer to attract a more lucrative clientele and you can be sure that Bond and Creed will push their MSRP up another $75-$100 at the high end doors to keep their numbers growing and looking good.

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree with this analysis. The luxury market is not recession-proof. After 2008, luxury goods actually took a bigger hit than the global economy: a drop of more than 13 percentage points between 2007-2009. It may be improving now, but I imagine it would be doing so in conjunction with the economy as a whole.

I think stores like Winner's and TJMaxx would fare relatively well during a recession. A woman wanting a Jill Sander blazer but who couldn't presently afford it in a department store would stand the chance of finding it at Winner's at a much better price. I think rather than these stores trying to capture a share of the luxury market, it would be more likely Bond No. 9 and Creed want to make their fragrances available to the increased amount of buyers that are going into stores like Winner's in search of lower price tags and greater value. But that is just my opinion.

I personally have found very few gems at Winner's when it comes to fragrance, mostly just drugstore stuff. Maybe I have just been unlucky.
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post #24 of 24
1/24/13 at 12:59am
Interesting. I'll keep a look out for bond/creeds to show up at the TJmaxx here in LA. Hopefully i can get one at a good price! =) I wonder about discounting the fact that creed/bond is a luxury item since they showed up at a discounters? I mean i'd still consider boss, versace, dolce & gabbana as luxury items still even though they're in discounters stores.

...Though they should obviously have better brand value control (tom ford did a great job in my opinion when he was at gucci. before he was there gucci seemed to get cheaper and cheaper and was a regular at the discount stores. now its almost back to where it was as far as luxury status goes.). Brands like Prada, McQueen, LV, would never be caught dead at a discounters. I don't think Creeds/Bonds are there yet. (yet creed is like 3-4x the price of chanel / Dior / prada fragrances....)

Sorry just rambling on. Just surprised that they'd end up in the bargain bin.
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Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › Fragrance Discussion › Fragrance Industry and General Fragrance Discussion › Bond No. 9 and Creed hit the Discounters - Bloom Officially off the Brand Rose