Perfume.com smells success with $6.8 million in online fragrance sales

Perfume.com’s parent Communicate.com Inc. reported record e-commerce revenue of $7.4 million for the year ending Dec. 31, 2006, an increase of 55% from the prior year. The company reported fragrance sales of $6.8 million for fiscal 2006, an increase of 75% compared to 2005.

Total revenue for FY 2006 was $8.4 million, up 46% from 2005, the company says. Q4 sales were $3.1 million.

Communicate.com has high expectations for 2007, based on planned increases in online and offline marketing efforts, says president David Jeffs. “We are pleased with all of our achievements during the past fiscal year,” he says. “We came just shy of our revenue target for 2006 as a result of being too restrained with our marketing efforts, spending less than 5% of sales on marketing.”

Marketing in 2007 will feature “aggressively expanding the company’s e-tail revenues and customer list,” Jeffs says. “We are very much encouraged by the fact that e-commerce, now mainstream among U.S. consumers, is expected to continue to grow at a brisk pace over the next several years. We are also pleased about an increasingly strong domain name aftermarket and believe in the great the potential resale value of our raw premium generic dotcom domains.”

Plans for 2007 include intensifying customer acquisition efforts at Perfume.com, which is No. 492 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, through increased online and offline marketing with a target of spending 10% of sales on marketing. The company is eyeing a bigger slice of an estimated $750 million annual online fragrance market, Jeffs adds.

Plans also include acquiring or building a small distribution center/warehouse in the U.S. to enhance Perfume.com’s fulfillment capability and complement its inventory system.

In addition to Perfume.com, Communicate.com also operates Cologne.com and Importers.com, a business-to-business site that promotes trade among international businesses. The company also operates a web domain name business. It sold the Wrestling.com name for $500,000 last year.