How Australia Buys Perfume (Interactive Maps)

At ScentGod, we've been serving customers acrossAustralia since 2022, fulfilling nearly 150,000 orders (a heartfelt thank youto our amazing customers!). We decided to dive deep into this treasure trove ofdata, uncovering fascinating insights about Australians' perfume preferences.

Here are some interesting findings we want to share with you.

1. Women buy more perfumes

We approached men and women equally when it came to marketing and initially we had a nearly 50-50 split of men and women among our subscribers.

However, the gender differences developed quickly and soon nearly 80% of the subscribers were women. This remains to be the case today.

2. Most orders come from Big 5 cities

We have served nearly all zip codes but they dwarf in comparison as most of the orders are sent to 5 top cities: Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

This is pretty obvious since most of the population live in the big 5 cities but worth mentioning.

2.1 Canberra likes to smell good!

Hold on though, besides the big 5, Canberra is nearly on par with the big cities in terms of orders.

Those Parliament House gals are giving the big cities a run for their money, proving that power and perfume go hand in hand. 😉

3. Men from smaller cities are not as interested

When we look at the data fromsmaller cities, we notice that men are even less likely to indulge in perfumescompared to their metropolitan counterparts.

Combining that with the first point - men buy less perfumes- we conclude that men in the big cities only are interested in perfumes. That's a shame.

4. Orders drop in Autumn

We notice a drop in perfume sales starting from April and lasting till June or July when it starts picking up again. Perhaps it is because people go out less in the winter and in anticipation, stop buying the perfumes hence the drop doesn't coincide with the winter months, rather comes early.

Leather perfumes remain consistent throughout the year although there isn't a lot of data there.

4.1 Winter perfumes

Funny enough, even the perfumes labelled "Winter" drop during this time although not as sharply as summer ones.

Musk, Woody and Spicy notes which are considered warm, suitable for winter, also dips as the winter arrives. Weird, right?

4.2 Summer notes

Refreshing, Herbs, Floral, Fruity and Sweet. These are the notes that peak in summer and fall the most as the temperatures start dropping. No surprises there.

4.3. Tobacco stands out!

This surprised us. For every other note we saw equal distribution of notes over the map but only for Tobacco, we find that only the big cities ordered Tobacco perfumes.

Tobacco perfumes are not much popular to begin with coming in at second to last position in terms of sales by notes so the data is sparse. Perhaps the city guys and gals are more open to experimenting with uncommon scents. There was a normal distribution between men and women though, meaning women are just as interested in tobacco perfumes as men.

Why do you think Tobacco perfumes sell like this? Comment below.

5. Best selling brands

When it comes to brand allegiances, Australia has spoken! Versace reigns supreme, capturing 6.5% of all orders, closely followed by Dolce & Gabbana at 6.2%. Australia loves to buy these 5 brands the most:

1. Versace (6.5% of all orders)
2. Dolce & Gabbana (6.2%)
3. Jimmy Choo (4.2%)
4. Marc Jacobs (4%)
5. Gucci (3.7%)

6. Best selling notes

Florals take the cake outpacing all other notes by a wide margin. Given that a large number of our audience is women and women like flowers, we get it. Here are the notes that Australians like to buy the most:

1. Floral
2. Fruity
3. Refreshing
4. Woody
5. Spicy

Note that the numbers are greater than the number of orders because a perfume can have many kinds of notes.

All else being equal

We tested many parameters like different notes, case colors, perfume brands, standard vs premium subscription, month and year of order, etc along the map but found nothing else of interest. The order distribution along the geography of Australia seems fairly homogenuous.

Would you like us to report on something? Let us know in the comments.

How is the data collected and processed?

Since every order has an address attached, we use only the zip code of the address to plot the order on the map. When you zoom into the map, the dot you see is in the center of the zip code and actual locations of our customers are not revealed.

More orders we have in the zip code, the redder that area will appear on the map between the range of Green, Yellow and Red.