Buyer beware: How to avoid bad-smelling deals when shopping for perfume online

A recent entry in the Consumer Ally column of the WalletPop personal finance site has some excellent advice about which online perfume merchants to avoid:

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/10/15/discount-perfume-and-cosmetic-deals-that-really-stink/?icid=main|ie8t|dl6|sec3_lnk2|177987

This piece names specific stores to avoid when shopping online, and also points readers to the excellent SiteJabber, a centralized clearing house for consumer reviews. If you are not familiar with fragrance merchants on the Web and are looking for bargains, this is a great place to start, since you can read about other consumers' experiences and hopefully avoid the same pitfalls. I have some other more generalized advice for the online perfume shopper, which taken together with the list of specific sites to stay clear of should be helpful to anyone surfing for scented bargains. I have written about some of these issues before, but you just can't be too careful.

1. Pay attention to the appearance of the Web site. Are there spelling errors in the names of the perfumes, or is the grammar a little bit off? You might be on a site that is dealing in counterfeit goods, or even “phishing” for your personal information. Just move along!

2. Is everything you really want always listed as out of stock, leaving nothing but the cheaper and most common brands you can buy anywhere? Don't bother shopping there, since you can pick up the stuff they do have at any department or discount store without paying extra for shipping. Spend your money on hard-to-find fragrances that you can't find in your local stores instead.

3. This is not always a bad sign, but does the description of the perfume only have the name and the price and nothing about what it smells like? That's fine if you are buying something you already know about, but a “blind buy” can be an expensive mistake. I like to use merchants that have good descriptions of the products offered, even if it's something with which I am already familiar. Since so many perfumes have similar names and there can be “flankers” with subtle name variations from the same brand, a good description of the perfume's notes can ensure that you are really buying what you think you are.

4. If no one returns your e-mails or phone calls within a reasonable time, find another place to shop. Merchants who ignore front line customer service are likely to be equally lax in the inventory and shipping departments. The only thing they will do promptly is take your money.

5. Please do comparison shop, for selection, price and service. You may find that there are sites that look almost identical to others and obviously have the same ownership. You may also find that some of them have a very clumsy or exceptionally easy site search function, and either good or bad ways to organize the pages. This can really make a difference when you are spending a lot of time searching for what you want. Make sure the prices are not out of whack with what else is out there, since prices that are too good to be true could mean either counterfeiting or dumping of very old stock that nobody else wants onto the market. On the other hand, prices that are too high mean you should keep looking until you can verify what the price range of that particular product is across all sites.

6. Does the site state clearly and prominently that they only sell genuine brands and that checkout is secured? If these statements are missing from their home page, give it a wide berth.

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