5 Tools That Took Perfume Direct from £0 to £5M
Since March 2018, I’ve had the privilege of launching and growing Perfume Direct from a fledgling startup to one of the UK’s leading beauty retailers. What started with nothing more than a domain, a credit card, and a dream quickly turned into one of the most exciting journeys of my career.
When I was asked to lead the project, I was 27, with five years of digital marketing and three years of eCommerce experience under my belt.
Imposter syndrome? Maybe a bit.
Over the past six years, we’ve combined innovative digital marketing, smart technology, and sharp decision-making to scale to £5M in revenue. Here, I’ll share five of the tools that were instrumental to our success, along with how we used them to unlock growth.
1. Wunderkind X Klaviyo: Turning Browsers into Buyers
When we first launched, email marketing was a manual, clunky process that didn’t really scale. A year in, we upgraded to Klaviyo, a powerful email, SMS, and push notification platform, and paired it with Wunderkind to supercharge our customer acquisition and retention.
Wunderkind works behind the scenes to analyse web traffic and identify visitors as either prospects or customers. Once it has this data, it triggers personalised on-site pop-ups that incentivise the visitor to submit their email & SMS data. If the visitor doesn’t then convert, a personalised email flow is triggered that feel less like “marketing” and more like a friendly nudge.
For example, a visitor browsing Calvin Klein fragrances might see a pop-up offering 10% off their first order. If they don’t complete the purchase, Wunderkind sends a tailored email series through Klaviyo, reminding them of the products they browsed—sometimes with a little extra incentive to convert or a notification that the product they browsed is low in stock.
Wunderkind onsite pop up with no incentive.
Within months, we were collecting over 20,000 email addresses per month and generating an extra £150k+ in revenue. These emails weren’t just about discounts—they were about relevance, personalisation, and building a relationship. It worked.
2. Yotpo Marketing Suite: Building Trust & Loyalty
In the beauty sector, trust is everything. Customers want reassurance that they’re buying genuine products, especially with the prevalence of counterfeits in the market. Enter Yotpo, a tool that became much more than just a review platform for us.
Yotpo’s features allowed us to:
• Showcase customer reviews and UGC to add authenticity to our brand. There’s nothing more convincing than hearing real people rave about a product.
• Build a loyalty programme that rewarded customers for reviews, sign-ups, birthdays, and more. This wasn’t just about points—it was about creating an emotional connection that kept customers coming back.
• Offer subscriptions to make reordering effortless for customers, driving retention and predictable revenue streams.
Perfume Direct’s Rewards Program.
One standout moment was when we launched a targeted SMS campaign for our loyalty members. Combining rewards with SMS marketing was a game-changer, and our customer lifetime value (LTV) saw a noticeable uptick as a result.
If you’re stuck on which reviews platform to choose, i wrote this handy blog called Yotpo vs Trustpilot which could help your decision making.
3. Developing a Mobile App: Early Risks That Paid Off
Admittedly, launching a mobile app just nine months into trading felt… premature. But with over 80% of our traffic coming from mobile devices, it made sense to experiment.
We chose Plobal as our App partner who offered a cost effective solution with great customer support & was relatively painless to set up.
Perfume Direct Mobile App.
The app became more than just another sales channel—it became a VIP tier for our most loyal customers. From personalised push notifications to barcode scanning for price comparisons, we made the shopping experience seamless and engaging.
In hindsight, the early investment was a bold move, but it paid off in spades. App users consistently had higher retention rates, and their average order values (AOV) were among the highest of any customer segment.
4. Retention X: Cracking the Code on Customer Behaviour
If you’ve ever tried to get into the mind of your customer, you’ll know how complex it can be. Retention X helped us take the guesswork out of the equation by offering detailed insights into customer behaviour.
One of my favourite features was its segmentation capabilities. We created groups like “Big Spenders,” “Bargain Hunters,” and “Inactive High-Value Customers” to tailor our marketing strategies. For example, Retention X revealed that male customers had a much higher LTV than females—something we wouldn’t have spotted otherwise.
Retention X creating customer segments in Klaviyo.
Using this insight, we adjusted our Meta Ads strategy to focus more on male audiences, increasing monthly revenue by 12% almost immediately.
5. Prisync: Dynamic & Automated
Before Prisync, keeping up with competitor pricing was an exhausting, manual process. With Prisync, it became effortless. We could monitor hundreds of competitors and make price changes dynamically while ensuring we maintained healthy margins.
Product price overview on Prisync.
For example, we set a rule to always price £1 lower than five specific competitors while maintaining at least a 42% margin. Prisync handled the rest, automatically adjusting prices in real time. The results? Higher sales volumes and a stronger competitive edge without the extra workload.
Lessons Learned on the Road to £5M
Reflecting on this journey, i believe our success came from identifying opportunities, staying nimble, and being relentless in our pursuit of growth.
Not everything we tried worked, and there were plenty of lessons along the way.
As Perfume Direct continues to grow, I’m excited about what’s next—whether it’s adopting AI to personalise customer journeys even further or exploring new markets like the US.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the digital landscape never stands still—and neither should we.