Businessman Eric Tran: “The destination of scent is emotion”

Known as the one who brought Pilates, the strange and exciting “sport of stars” to Vietnam, scent expert and businessman Eric Tran continued to surprise when he recklessly launched two boutique specializes in international high-end niche perfumery, attracting the attention of Vietnamese fashionistas. Hello! The brand ViinRiic Niche Perfume with two stores in Ho Chi Minh City and its own appointment model has become familiar to high-end perfume lovers recently. Since when did you start the niche perfume business?

Businessman Eric Tran: “The destination of scent is emotion”

Businessman Eric Tran officially started the perfume business 4 years ago. In Vietnam, perhaps businessman Eric Tran was the first to trade in mainstream niche perfumes. Currently, ViinRiic owns more than 30 international niche brands in Vietnam. There are only a few places in the world that offer a private appointment booking model like mine.

This can be considered a bold idea and is very supported by perfume brands and perfumers, because this model is not commercial, while helping to elevate perfume to a level New level. In the European and American market, distributors do not sell niche perfumes on a mass basis, do not own offices or showrooms in flashy places. With its own community of sophisticated and sophisticated people, niche perfume products always have a different position and class.

As a pioneer, and almost unique in this niche, can it be said that he is quite successful after 4 years?
I enter this game with the mentality of a collector who wants to satisfy his passion for perfumes rather than a businessman with heavy commercial goals. To succeed in a competitive business environment, you must have the head of an entrepreneur.

Currently, I am still in the infancy, but cannot be called a success, partly because the market is quite narrow, consumers do not know much about the concept of niche perfume. There are even times when the business situation is so dismal that I just want to give up due to the manipulation of the market for handmade and counterfeit goods. But in the end, I overcame because of the determination to do it to the end. In the next 2 years, I plan to open a 3rd boutique in Ho Chi Minh City and the first store in Hanoi, then focus on building a brand and developing a sustainable system with a long-term business strategy.

Since when did businessman Eric Tran and the scent “fall in love” with each other?
When I was a child, I was very fond of scents, such as the smell of fresh grass, sweet and sweet nectar… At that time, my family was not well off, my parents were farmers, I had no concept of perfume. . It wasn’t until the age of 17-18 that I was given a bottle of French perfume by a relative from abroad with a sweet fragrance, from then on, I officially fell in love with the scent.

I was very happy when I received the gift, cherished it like a treasure, didn’t dare to use it much, just sprayed a little bit of my soul that was floating. Later, when I was financially better off, I started researching through newspapers and the internet. I am fortunate to have family members abroad who work in cosmetics, so I have the opportunity to learn. During the period when I went to Belgium to study and work for more than 10 years, I collected nearly 500 hundred perfume bottles and had a small room dedicated to displaying and storing perfume like a real shop.

When did businessman Eric Tran decide to enter the scent business?
I am used to buying perfumes at Parfums Jovoy stores in France, so I happened to know the owner Henin Francois – who was the scent director of Miss Saigon in Vietnam for 4 years before liberation. Knowing that I love scents, Francois advised me to develop my business in the same direction as him, enthusiastically guiding me into the world of perfume business, introducing me to some famous niche brands, thus new firms put their trust in me, because I am just an unknown while the Vietnamese market is too small to see any potential, but is dominated by the gray market, besides ambiguity & legal difficulties. .

It can be said that I am the initiator of the first niche perfume business model in Vietnam with a few prominent brands, after 4 years, I have gathered more than 30 brands globally. Next year I will remove some of the lines that don’t work and be consistent in how many brands each store will distribute.

How do you see the niche perfume buyer market in our country?
There are 2 very clear target files: collectors who play scents, and those who can afford to buy perfume to use. They are quite different, collectors choose special, difficult to use scents that ordinary people never use, they always want to discover and conquer new scents. The second file favors scents that are easy to use every day. The purpose of use is very different and the financial capacity is also different, collectors do not have a lot of money, but they have gout and passion, so they dare to save and invest in expensive scents. red. In my shop, a bottle of niche perfume costs from 100 USD to several thousand USD. Saigon is a big market, but I still think that the northern market is quite potential, because Hanoians are very gouty.

Can you elaborate on the meaning of the word “niche” in perfumery?
There are many people who think niche is a luxury that cannot be touched, but niche perfume is a rather general word, because it includes niche design, niche original, niche indie. Collectors like to play more indie scents, difficult to use, self-indulgent, depending on the soaring imagination and the individual’s harmony with the scent. Some independent perfumers don’t like branding, don’t care about design, but their souls put in scents are “horrible”. There are smells that can evoke us in terms of time, space, color, emotion, flesh. is an individual’s agreement with the scent. Niche is so!

Sometimes people slightly “divine” the scent, seeing it as a religion, not as a product for themselves. What do you think?
The mass perfume market is indeed falling into such a state. Brands selling designer perfumes may intentionally do this to promote products. However, with niche perfumes, it’s not so much an exaggeration but a personal feeling, just as people are willing to buy a $1 million painting for their own perspective.

In my opinion, scent has two aspects: application and artistic – aesthetic. If you don’t feel the second aspect, you certainly won’t spend a lot of money to buy it, however, those who “play” the scent will accept it, like MC Tran Thanh spends $4,000 to own a bottle. Roja Haute Luxe. When you collect an item that isn’t for the masses, you’ll understand why it’s worth spending money, four thousand, one hundred thousand or even one million dollars to get something you love. In short, the destination of scent or art is emotion.

It seems that niche perfumery is narrow, but the variety of scents is more than the design line?
Exactly! The design line focuses on commerciality, so you can see many perfume bottles of big brands that have similar scents, which are popular scents that are easy to use, easy to love. With niche perfumes, in a scent group, each brand will have 3-5-7 or 17-19-21 scent names or more, and each scent value is completely different. You can clearly see the personal DNA of the user’s scent and style.

There are niche brands that only offer difficult, difficult to feel – difficult to approach – difficult to touch – difficult to use scents, they themselves narrow the customer audience, but if you get used to it, you will love it and remember it. There are also brands that make many scents, they will split 50:50, create their own group of difficult scents, and a group that is easier to use to please customers, because they also need costs to survive.

Having successfully launched the scent An’l Mendittorosa, have businessman Eric Tran thought about becoming a perfumer?
Certainly, in 1-2 years, I will go to France to study intensively about perfumery to become a true perfumer. In order to satisfy my sense of smell and hobby of collecting, I did a commercial, but to get to a higher level, I had to become a perfumer.

Creating and “playing” with new fragrances is extremely satisfying. In the future, I cherish the idea of creating my own perfume label, which will invite all my favorite perfumers to create unique products for the brand.

About businessman Eric Tran

Born in Nha Trang, businessman Eric Tran studied Economics – Accounting, then moved to live and work in Belgium for more than 10 years. He has researched and studied in depth perfumery and Pilates sport in Belgium and Europe.

Returning to Vietnam, he founded the Pour Vous – Pilates Center Yoga and Spa specializing in Pilates training and training in 2011, currently has 3 branches in Ho Chi Minh City, very popular with entertainers and celebrities. favored by business people.

ViinRiic Niche Perfume specializes in high-end niche fragrances founded by businessman Eric Tran in 2015 with a private appointment model. Currently, ViinRiic Niche Perfume has 2 branches in Ho Chi Minh City, owning over 30 leading niche perfume brands in the world such as Roja Parfums, Aaron Terence Hughes, Atelier De Ors, Francesca Bianchi, Unum, Boadicea The Victorious, Mendittorosa…

“I have always believed: Every scent is a journey. They dive deep into the past, roam in memory. They explore inspiring and unknown horizons, and are ready for new adventures,” said businessman Eric Tran.

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