New E-tailer Jalisia Collective Wants To Make Shopping For Luxury Niche Fragrances Easier

The perfume category can be super confusing. There are 3.4 billion views for #perfumetiktok and 1.4 billion views for #perfumetok on TikTok. There are 2,404 search results for fragrance on Sephora’s website. There’s perplexing terminology—who knows what chypre is?—and a spate of new brands arriving on the market.

Amid it all, Jalisia Collective is trying to make shopping for niche luxury fragrances manageable. The e-tailer’s core proposition is a three-fragrance seasonal discovery set introducing customers to scents they probably aren’t familiar with. Priced at $120, its current discovery set contains 8.5-ml. travel-friendly vials of The Harmonist’s Moon Glory, Maison Matine’s Espirit de Contradiction and Olfactive Studio’s Lumiere Blanche.

“I really wanted to find a way to start something for people to discover niche brands more conveniently,” says Jalisia Collective founder Jalisia Wright. “I also felt there are so many options out there. Right now, we are in a world where everything is getting thrown at us, and I need something that’s more confined. That’s when I came up with the idea for the set.”

Wright, 26, has been a fan of fragrance since she was very young. She received a bottle of Britney Spears’ perfume Curious from her mom in the fifth grade—“It gave me a fun, warm feeling,” she remembers—and it’s remained in her fragrance rotation. So, it made sense that once she went to Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Fla., she would work in the fragrance department at Dillard’s to help support herself. She ultimately graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2019 and aspired to be an entrepreneur.

“When I graduated school and was able to afford niche fragrances, I was like, ‘Man, it’s really expensive and time-consuming, let me see if I can find a niche discovery set.’ Some websites had individual samples, but I didn’t like the websites or the packaging,” says Wright. “Stores are nice, but there are so many fragrances sprayed in that confined area, I would have to step out to really smell a fragrance.”

In 2020, she began developing Jalisia Collective and poured roughly $30,000 into bringing it to life. Getting brands on board wasn’t easy initially. She honed her presentation to convince them to test its concept to get in front of customers experimenting with niche fragrances. So far, she’s had the best luck with foreign brands interested in gaining an American audience. Paris-based Maison Matine was the first brand to sign onto Jalisia Collective, and its participation has been influential in drawing other brands.

On Jalisia Collective’s site, Wright underscores brands are going to be in good company with fellow niche brands. “My website doesn’t carry 100 different brands. I’m focusing on three brands at a time,” she says. “For them, it’s free marketing, and I’m also building my business and my name. It’s a win-win. I want them out there, and I also want people to trust me.”

Wright’s objective for Jalisia Collective, which debuted in July, is for it generate $80,000 to $100,000 in sales by July of next year. As she’s running it, she’s holding down a job as a production assistant at an apparel manufacturer. To build Jalisia Collective, she’s concentrating on organic social media and influencer marketing.

“I really wanted to find a way to start something for people to discover niche brands more conveniently.”

While selling perfumes at Dillard’s, she learned there’s a variety of fragrance shoppers. There’s the sort that has some 50 fragrances in their collection and is hungry to add to it. Then, there’s the sort that requires a moment or two to figure out what fragrance they’re willing to plunk down for.

Jalisia Collective’s model is a fit for both sorts of shoppers, but it’s especially attuned to consumers who ruminate over their purchases. Wright describes its target customers as “people who appreciate quality over quantity. They rather have statement pieces like one or two nice bags a year, and they like things to be simple, but elevated.”

If a Jalisia Collective customer trials and likes one of the fragrances in its discovery set, the online retailer has full-size fragrances they can invest in. At least at the outset, however, Wright believes the discovery set will drive the bulk of its sales. Candles are expected to join Jalisia Collective’s assortment in the future.

“The main goal is to have the customer find their favorite fragrance for the season, but it’s about how they are doing it,” she says. “They have time to buy a full bottle, and they don’t feel it’s always something new coming out that’s being pushed in their face so they get overwhelmed.”

Jalisia Collective has entered the fragrance scene as the category has been growing. According to market research firm The NPD Group, prestige fragrance sales in the United States rose 13% to $1.5 billion in the second quarter of this year. Last year, NPD estimates the fragrance category registered the most growth, at 49%, of any prestige beauty category.

Discussing the fragrance category’s rise, Wright says, “People are scaling back on consumption, and it might make up for other things that you felt you needed, but you don’t. Fragrance is something that’s good for people looking for a minimalistic life. It’s a statement in itself. You can have on a normal outfit, spray fragrance and feel elevated. There’s also another shift with people trying to be more happy with themselves, and it’s about self-love for your body and how you look, not putting on heavy makeup. Fragrance helps with confidence.”

Wearing Curious, Wright is immediately transported back to fifth grade and joyous pre-teen memories. At Jalisia Collective, she hopes to introduce customers to fragrances that will be associated with similarly pleasant memories. “What will make me happy is people discovering a fragrance from Jalisia Collective, even if they don’t buy the full size on my website,” she says. “When I used to work at Dillard’s, what made me so happy was when someone found a new fragrance because that fragrance is going to trigger so many memories. They may go on a date wearing it and end up with that person, and they’ll remember it tied to that scent. It’s something you don’t forget.”