Premium Beauty News - Your offering was initially focused on accessories. How did perfume become a key element?

Olivier Raulin - We observed a change in consumption patterns: today, people want simpler, more affordable, faster-changing fragrances. So, we chose simple, pure scents, like Coco, Vanille Gourmande des Antilles, or Ylang Ylang de Madagascar. The idea is to offer sober, interchangeable, travel-size (30 ml) perfumes that can be associated with other fragrances in the range and cost less than 7 euros.

Now, we have 150 references which we regularly modify, and we plan one or two launches per month. Our simple, colourful packaging is identical for all references – only the juices and labels change. We make our products in France, in our plant near Bordeaux, and we work on juices with some of the greatest noses in Grasse.

Beyond perfume, we aim to develop the notion of look through affordable cosmetics and fashion accessories. We target 20-30-year-old working women with an average budget. Today, each activity represents about a third of our turnover (perfumes, cosmetics, and accessories) – perfumes only accounted for 18% of it in 2015.

Premium Beauty News - How do you communicate with your customers?

Olivier Raulin - We do not use corporate communication for advertising, but we are very present on social media through partnerships with influencers. We launch co-created perfumes, and we organize events with influencers, like the 8th anniversary of La Penderie de Chloé. We are very active with our community: we share product creations, meetings with perfumer creators…

All this helped us reach the 98th rank on the TubeReach barometer for YouTube in Europe (in July-August 2018), and the 143rd rank on Instagram, out of 500 brands, on the European level. That is quite interesting, because we are only present in France.

In addition, we have just launched a new store concept at the Belle Épine shopping mall, south of Paris, where our customers can interact with a screen and fill in a questionnaire to get suggestions of adapted perfumes! See box.

Premium Beauty News - What are your development priorities?

Olivier Raulin - Our consumers are young working women. We are positioned in shopping malls, near fashion stores, but also in city centres. And we are very well-established in big French cities and their suburbs, with six points of sale in Marseille and Lyon, five in Bordeaux, and seven in Paris.

We own 185 stores (190 by the end of 2019), including 40 franchises, mainly located in France’s overseas territories. Our turnover reached 36 million euros in 2017 and we sell one fragrance every 10 seconds in France.

We intend to grow by opening as many as 30 stores annually over the next five years in France, and then around the world, on neighbouring, similar markets in terms of consumption, like Italy, Spain, and Germany. We also sell our products on the global level, thanks to distributors in China, Russia, Belgium, Algeria, Taiwan, and Dubai, among others. We boast key advantages to seduce foreign consumers, in particular in China, where we aim to open about 100 stores in four years.

We would like to keep using an accessible language, with an approach based on the use, rather than on the technicity of perfume. Our range already makes it possible to use layering, a current growing trend, and we would like to develop this.

On top of that, we have diversified our business by launching perfume derivatives (body care, shower gels, etc.) and boxes containing 125 ml bottles, together with soaps, shower gels, or body milks.

Adopt’ is gradually finding its own place in the French landscape. We highlight our local manufacturing choice (France and Europe) to seduce our consumers in search of authenticity.

A digitized store concept

At the Belle Épine shopping mall, Adopt’ partnered with HMY to launch a digitized concept aimed to renew the customer experience. It is now focused on the brand’s three basics: perfumes, cosmetics, and fashion accessories.


Three innovations were designed and implemented:

- The parfumothèque, the flagship feature of the new concept, is fitted with an interactive screen: after a few questions on her search, mood, and tastes, the application offers the customer a selection of three perfumes which light up on the wall to make it easier to discover the fragrances selected.

- Make-up stations enable customers to test the products they chose on their own or to ask a beauty advisor for a free makeup session or personalized tips. Thanks to the tablet under the mirror, the customer has access to various tutorials and associated product advice. The tables are fitted with cameras for customers to take pictures of themselves and share them on social media.

- There are screens in the windows and in the stores (on the walls and behind the cashdesks). The Adopt’ headquarters manage their content so it is adapted to the year’s events, commercial operations, and product launches. The products can be personalized in the stores.