Tell me about traveling perfume salesmen.

April 6, 2004 5:41 AM

Who do traveling perfume salesmen work for? Why is their MO to go into retail establishments and sell to people who work there?
posted by pieoverdone to clothing, beauty, & fashion (7 comments total)

If you're talking about the same perfume salespeople I am, they work for a company that makes knockoffs. You see, you cannot copyright a scent. And scents are cheap, so namebrands are sold on the merits of the illusion they create, the coolness and mystique of their packaging and name and advertising and celebrity sponsors, and other general hype and bullshit.

So these companies pop up and claim to have the technology (sometimes just one machine) that will analyze designer scents and create an accurate knockoff. "IF YOU LIKE DRAKKAR YOU'LL LOVE [fill in cheesy knockoff name here]." But, fake Drakkar still never smells like the real thing.

And these companies give these poor out-of-work kids these damn convincing sales pitches, advertised by bullshit in the newspapers like "SELF-STARTERS NEEDED FOR A NEW COMPANY, $1,000/WEEK, NO QUOTAS!" or whatever the current line of bullshit is.

And, like Kirby vaccum cleaner salesmen, these kids (or men or women) sell a few knockoffs to their friends and relatives, then they hit the road to cold-call business visits, and they get really depressed and then give up.

In the meantime, the company made a few sales, and already has the next prospective sucker group of disposable salespeople lined up.

(By the way, I don't wear cologne; I'm allergic to perfumes and cigarette smoke and chemicals. My windpipe swells shut like a cocktail straw and my eyes water uncontrollably.)
posted by Shane at 7:03 AM on April 6, 2004

Many years ago, I was one of them. For about 6 hours.

The reason that's their MO is because that's what the minimal training they get tells them to do. You're desperate for work, you answer an ad in the paper, and you think you're getting an interview.

You show for the interview only to find that there's like 50 other people "interviewing" for the same job. Because you really are desperate for work - you stay to hear the spiel. By this point, you figure - your days already wasted - might as well give it a shot.

So, you try it for a day, then decide that this is bullshit and take the parfum back to the crapass commercial park where you got it.

The employers of these people prey on the desperate, please be nice when you're telling them to get the fuck out of your store. It's good karma.
posted by jaded at 7:49 AM on April 6, 2004

Don't feel bad, jaded. Years and years ago I went to check out one of those jobs with a friend, but the people running the show were, in my case, such obnoxious assholes and were so ineffective at their sales pitch that I walked out.

I remember one of them asking me if I'm good with people and I said, "Yeah, I'm affable, people like me," and the manager made a huge joke about "What the hell does 'affable' mean? What is this, Shakespeare class?"

The manager also leered at all the young women in the group of prospectives, and was pointedly nasty to me when one of said young ladies who knew me came over to talk to me. Not to mention he repeatedly told everyone not worry about motivation, because, as he put it, "his little six inches would be constantly up our butts pushing us along."

Classy, eh?
posted by Shane at 9:57 AM on April 6, 2004

They target retail employees specifically because retail employees are supposed to believe in customer service. As a result, they are more likely to be polite when a stranger approaches and less likely to just ignore the salesperson and walk away.
posted by MegoSteve at 10:01 AM on April 6, 2004

I always assumed it was because they had a captive audience. You can't really walk away and leave the shop just to get away from the poor perfume salesperson.

As a general word of caution, avoid job classifieds that ask any of the following questions:

Do you like the outdoors?
Do you like rock and roll?
Are you athletic?
Do you like sports?

Because you will inevitably be selling perfume or discount cards for local restaurants or any number of other items of dubious value, strung along by the promises that if you get some other chumps to come do this crap job, too, you can start your very own dubious value item pyramid scam.

An old roommate of mine got really into the discount menu card one until she made the mistake of dragging me along to an informational meeting, which was so hokey I couldn't stop making fun of it, so halfway through the day she quit so we could go to the mall for Chinese food. She's a PR schmooze for a big record company now, so she probably had the personality type to take that thing all the way.

Sorry about ruining your at a discount menu card pyramid scam monopoly, old roommate.
posted by jennyb at 12:32 PM on April 6, 2004

Your chance. I ruined your chance. And a couple of your shirts, but that's another story.
posted by jennyb at 12:42 PM on April 6, 2004

YOu mean those discount cards weren't really being sold by Domino's? Dang!
posted by konolia at 4:09 PM on April 6, 2004