Former banker Sergio Tache had an epiphany one day: Why should anyone pay $150 or more just to smell nice on a date? Dossier, his fragrance company that has now shipped more than one million orders, was founded to answer this question.
After starting various beauty ventures in hair and skin care, he discovered his calling when a conversation with his first investor led to what he calls his aha moment about the fragrance industry. “I always thought, there’s gotta be a way of creating great products, selling them at an affordable price, and finding a way for the customer to get the best bang for their buck,” Sergio explains.
How to make and sell luxury goods at an accessible price point
Ahead, Sergio breaks down his steps for developing a successful brand that offers premium perfume at an affordable price.
1. Deconstruct luxury to find value
The key to Dossier’s success lies in Sergio’s understanding of what creates value in luxury fragrances. Rather than accepting the industry’s high-margins, he decided to dissect every single component of the traditional pricing models. “We took all the things that make great perfumes fantastic, which are super high quality ingredients, great craftsmanship made in France, no nasty ingredients, and removed all the fluff and unnecessary marketing around them,” Sergio says.
By eliminating celebrity endorsements, elaborate packaging, and bespoke bottles Sergio was able to drastically cut end costs. His strategy addressed a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, particularly among younger customers, who, when purchasing fragrances, are interested in discovery and variety. “That concept [of one signature scent for their entire lives] is gone with a younger generation,” Sergio adds. “They want … what we call a wardrobe of perfumes.”
2. Build trust with transparent operations
In order to offer affordable luxury, Dossier had to do more than just cut costs—it needed to build trust with customers who couldn’t physically interact with the product before purchasing. “What we told our customers was, ‘Look, you can buy perfume from us. You can open the bottle, try it on. If you don’t like it within 30 days, just reach out to us, send it back to us, and we’ll refund you. No questions asked,’” Sergio says.
Offering a generous return policy, combined with clear messaging around manufacturing in France helped overcome the natural skepticism of buying fragrances online.
Additionally, the buyer-friendly price point also reduced purchase anxiety, making it almost an impulse buy while still delivering genuine value.
3. Find manufacturing partners you can rely on
Finding the right manufacturing partner proved to be one of Sergio’s biggest hurdles, particularly coming from outside the fragrance industry. “This industry is still pretty closed up, a pretty opaque industry,” Sergio says.
Sergio did what most founders might do when entering an unfamiliar industry. He reached out to dozens of potential partners, not just to find the right one, but to educate himself about the industry. “Through that network you start understanding who are the right people to talk to, who are the good producers, who will be the right partners,” Sergio says. Using a tried-and-true business tactic, he found that the more quality cold emails or calls he put out, the higher chances he got of getting a positive response.
4. Engineer unit economics for long term success
Dossier developed a systematic approach to understanding profitability through what Sergio calls “contribution margins”—decomposing revenue into CM1 (contribution margin 1) which is price minus cost of goods) CM2 (CM1 minus logistics), and CM3 (CM2 minus customer acquisition costs). Using this framework helped the perfume brand optimize every single aspect of the business while maintaining quality where it matters most.
The brand remains profitable through smart supply chain decisions, like using identical bottles across all fragrances to enable bulk ordering while creating a consistent brand look. “You can order way more bottles and you can save money by doing that. And you don’t have the nightmare of managing stock for 150 types of bottles,” Sergio explains. Deciding to use uniform bottles also allows the brandto invest in premium elements like magnetic caps that create a luxury feel, or in-person activations that encourage customers to experience the fragrance in real life.
5. Commit to market discovery
Dossier’s marketing strategy leverages customer’s existing knowledge, rather than focusing on new education techniques. Working with thousands of influencers across YouTube and TikTok, it built an in-house team of 10 to 12 people dedicated solely to creator partnerships, with messaging centered around product comparison and lifestyle. “It’s very difficult to explain the concept of Dossier, and a perfume in general, just by showing a photo of the product,” Sergio notes.
The brand’s “impressions collection”—fragrances inspired by luxury scents but sold at accessible prices—provide a natural marketing hook while addressing customer curiosity about expensive fragrances they couldn’t otherwise afford to try.
6. Scale thoughtfully by improving systems
Dossier grew from three employees to more than 100, all while the brand maintained a focus on continuous product improvement. One particularly telling example involved customer complaints about fragrance longevity. “People think in terms of the number of spritzes and not necessarily how much quantity of perfume they put on the skin. So our pump just didn’t dispense a lot of liquid. So we changed the pump and all of a sudden the perception improved,” Sergio explains.
Sergio’s attention to detail extends to his leadership philosophy as well. “I try to stay in the weeds as much as possible,” he says. “Details really, really matter, and it’s important for me to stay in contact as much as possible with these details because it really helps me understand the company.”
Having proved the direct-to-consumer (DTC) concept online, Dossier is now expanding into physical retail through its first flagship store in New York City. It also has partnerships with Walmart and CVS that will extend its reach into the national retail market. This strategy to expand into brick-and-mortar retail recognizes that the majority of perfume purchases still happen in person, and allows Dossier to reach customers uncomfortable with buying fragrance online.
Sergio has also used the opportunity to interact with customers as a testing ground, observing how they interact with products in person. Dossier’s past pop-ups have informed everything from product development to store layout decisions. As Sergio puts it, “You can be the best marketer in the world. If you don’t have a good product, I always feel you’re not gonna go very far.”
The fragrance industry may have seemed like an unlikely place for disruption, because of the seasoned players in the space, but by focusing relentlessly on accessible pricing without sacrificing quality, Sergio Tache built a perfume empire with Dossier. Catch the full interview on Shopify Masters to learn how he scaled to sell his one millionth product and see the behind the scenes of launching Dossier’s New York flagship store.
