Dupes are a big business.

Across TikTok and Reddit, beauty fans swap tips and recommendations for affordable alternatives to hard-to-get products, whether due to their price (think Maison Francis Kurkdjian Rouge Baccarat 540, $325) or the fact that they’re in short supply (any of Sol de Janiero’s $34 body mists).

While dupe mania touches all beauty categories, the craze has been particularly strong in fragrance. Viral premium perfumes often retail for triple digits, putting them out of reach for many shoppers. Because of that, lately, standalone dupe-specific brands are emerging to meet demand for lower-priced versions of favoured scents. Different from counterfeits, where companies attempt to pass off an imitation product as the real deal, brands that successfully create “smell-a-like” alternatives to popular luxury scents — whether overtly marketed as such or not — have broad appeal without the ick factor.

One such brand is New York-based Dossier, which launched in 2019 and sells over 90 dupes of best-selling scents like Le Labo Santal 33, YSL Black Opium and even Chanel No.5 for as little as $29. Its founder and chief executive, Sergio Tache and vice president, Ines Guien, say their brand helps to democratise the fragrance industry.

Now, it’s widening its focus to include more in-house perfumes, not modelled on any existing fragrances, which it calls its “originals” (the dupes are referred to as “impressions”).

“If you had asked me when we launched if we would create [original scents], I would have said ‘probably not’,” said Tache. But now, “we really want to put an emphasis on our in-house perfume that we develop from scratch with our very own ideas.”

Dossier isn’t alone. Alt Fragrances, another US based line, offers scents of its own creation, but is better known for the likes of “Executive” (inspired by Kering-owned Creed’s Aventus) and “Farouche” (inspired by Dior Sauvage, the world’s best-selling scent). Fast fashion retailer Zara also offers a number of scents that are ranked by comparison sites like Dupe Shop for their likeness to luxury perfumes, but also sells others that are considered more original.

Dossier added its first original scents in 2023, and now offers 13, with eight more launching before the end of this year. To generate hype, new originals will be launched on a specific day a few times a month, called “Dossier drop day”.

But few dupe brands have managed to make those who came for the lookalikes stay for the originals. E.l.f Beauty, originally known for affordable editions of trending cosmetics like its Halo Glow Liquid Filter (a play on Charlotte Tilbury’s Hollywood Flawless Filter, two and half times more expensive) has carved out an ownable space by continuing to offer low-cost products with viral appeal that straddle innovation and desirability. Others, like the U.K’s Makeup Revolution, which sells alternatives to premium lines like Huda Beauty for less than $10, are still largely thought of as dupe-only.

In fragrance, no brand has yet managed to make the transition. But Tache thinks there’s a critical mass of consumers who are fed up with paying too much for products in general.

“I knew that margins in beauty in general tend to be pretty high, but perfume really takes the cake,” he said.

Changing Landscapes

The addition of original scents comes as luxury brands are looking to increase their moats against competitors.

Historically, they were outwardly indifferent to dupe brands, asserting that they are essentially what fashion brands like Shein are to Chanel: a poor imitation that doesn’t dilute their true customer base. There is little legal recourse. Rachel Hearson, a trademark attorney at patent law firm HLK, said it’s all but impossible for brands to obtain trademarks for fragrances, as the smell is usually not distinctive enough to be associated with a singular firm, nor can it be clearly represented on a trademark register. (In 2009, L’Oréal proved a rare exception successfully preventing the sale of imitation perfumes made by a firm called Bellure via a complex web of European trademark laws. But that had more to do with the use of their brand name in marketing, rather than the scents themselves.)

Without legal precedent, other methods are emerging to deter copycats. Some seek patents for specific molecules. Japanese conglomerate Kao has a patented musk note, big fragrance firms like Givaudan have several. Symrise, a German ingredients company that manufactures fragrances for the likes of Carolina Herrera and DKNY, invested in technology that “blurs” the ingredients in its fragrances to prevent the scents being reverse-engineered through the use of gas chromatography, a common method for interpreting perfume notes. (Dossier uses it; Guien said it allows them to gauge around 60 percent of a perfume’s composition.)

Other brands are simply refusing to disclose the notes in their perfumes at all. Doing so can even be a marketing tactic. With Glossier’s You perfume, for example, the brand simply claims it enhances the smell of the wearer.

Building Desire

For original scents to become a lasting success, brands will need to convince perfume devotees of their high quality.

“Dupes are extremely popular right now, and that is our bread and butter … but we also want to show our own creativity,” said Dossier’s Tache.

The brand hosted a pop-up event in June in New York City to promote its original scents, and sold out of many of its best-sellers, with two hour wait times to get into the event. Guien adding that the dupe scents have created so much awareness for the brand, she saw “no reason” for customers to not be equally enthusiastic about its own scents.

Education will be another key pillar. In line with its ethos around democratising perfume, Dossier offers a scent called “Free The Musk,” intended to ignite a conversation around the use of patented ingredients.

“We want to show people a musk doesn’t have to be patented to be beautiful and sensual,” said Guien.

Adding unique scents is a natural step to help Dossier create a more enduring stance in the industry, and while Tache declined to delineate if the margins are greater on its impressions or originals, he was adamant that affordability would always be key.

“The North Star is to create perfumes that are affordable for the 99 percent,” he said, adding that the dupes were key to kick-starting that movement. “But we really want to be more than that, and having our own collection and being able to offer diversity to our customers is really important to us.”

Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.

Macy’s board unanimously voted to terminate discussions with Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital, two activist investor groups that had been looking to take the department store chain private in a $6.9 billion deal, the retailer announced Monday.

Arkhouse and Brigade have “failed to lead to an actionable proposal with certainty of financing at a compelling value,” the company said, effectively closing the door on the prospect of a buyout and ending a months-long skirmish with Arkhouse, a real estate hedge fund. Looking ahead, Macy’s will prioritise its turnaround strategy under CEO Tony Spring, which entails eliminating 25 percent of its retail footprint and improving the shopping experience.

Macy’s shares fell sharply on the news to $16.62 Monday morning, trading 13 percent lower than its closing price Friday of $19.09.

Arkhouse and Brigade submitted their initial bid in December 2023, offering $5.8 billion or $21 per share for the ailing American chain. Macy’s rebuffed that offer. In February, Arkhouse Management launched a proxy fight at Macy’s, nominating nine new directors on Macy’s board for election.

The following month, the firms increased their offer to $24. The two parties entered an agreement for due diligence, since which the retailer said it has spent “hundreds of hours” reviewing documents, taking meetings and addressing their requests. In April, Macy’s agreed to add two of Arkhouse’s candidates to its 15-person board, naming them to the finance committee tasked with reviewing Arkhouse’s take-private bid.

In late June, Arkhouse and Brigade raised their proposal once more to $24.80 per share, Macy’s said, but the price was still below the range that it had informed its pursuers was compelling in March.

The financing proposal was also conditional and lacked full commitment as well as actionable steps, the board had decided.

To maximise the value of the company to shareholders, its best bet is prioritising Macy’s “Bold New Chapter” strategy, Paul Varga, lead independent director of Macy’s, Inc. said in a statement.

Shortly after chief executive Tony Spring took the helm in February, Macy’s introduced its new turnaround strategy that entails culling one-fourth of its retail footprint, growing its luxury segment Bloomgindale’s and improving the customer shopping experience.

“While it remains early days, we are pleased that our initiatives have gained traction,” Spring said in the announcement Monday.

Shoppers are likely to spend roughly $14 billion during Amazon’s Prime Day two-day shopping event this week, according to projections from Adobe Analytics, a firm that studies e-commerce transaction data.

Spending at Amazon on Tuesday and Wednesday could rise 10.5 percent from Prime Day 2023, Adobe said.

The online retailer began holding Prime Day a decade ago, typically in July. Prime Day accounts for 1 percent to 2 percent of Amazon’s net global sales, according to CFRA Research.

Amazon started advertising pre-Prime Day deals in early July on clothes, back-to-school gear, wellness products and electronics, though it moved Prime Day back by five days on the calendar this year.

Amazon said that Day 1 of its two-day Prime Day 2023 earned its biggest sales day ever, although it doesn’t disclose total sales for Prime Day.

The $12.7 billion shoppers spent at Amazon last year during Prime Day was 6.1 percent more than what they spent during the 2022 event, according to Adobe.

Amazon’s Prime Day has turned July, an otherwise slow time for retailers, into a season when shoppers look for bargains, especially on back-to-school clothing, electronics, uniforms, backpacks, dorm decorations and supplies.

Rivals Walmart and Target are also launching July discounts and marketing events in a bid to beat Amazon at its own game, and capture some of the $38.8 billion that the National Retail Federation trade group projects Americans will spend on back-to-school merchandise this summer.

Following years of high inflation, shoppers have delayed purchases of non-essential goods and retailers are tempting shoppers to break that habit with aggressive July discounting.

“We are expecting really strong momentum for back-to-school,” said Vivek Pandya, Adobe’s lead insights analyst.

Shoppers are now more willing to spend and have started to use Prime Day as a back-to-school shopping opportunity, he said.

Shoppers could spend $7.1 billion at Amazon on Tuesday alone, up 11.3 percent from a year earlier, Adobe said. Day 2 is expected to bring $6.9 billion in online sales, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier, it said.

Adobe expects Amazon to dangle discounts of 22 percent on electronics, 20 percent on clothing, 17 percent on home goods and furniture and 11 percent on sporting goods.

Adobe’s projections are based on its analysis of data measuring transactions from previous Prime Days.

By Ananya Mariam Rajesh and Arriana McLymore

Learn more:

Amazon Prime Day Isn’t the Only Game in Town Anymore

The e-commerce giant’s rivals are planning their own sales events, while Shein and Temu are luring consumers with the promise of year-round discounts. That, plus what else to watch for in the week ahead.

In sportswear, innovation is the name of the game.

On got its big break as a sneaker start-up thanks to the lightbulb moment co-founder Olivier Bernhard had when he cut up pieces of a rubber garden hose pipe to form the springy sole of the brand’s prototype running shoe. It formed the basis of the Swiss brand’s propriety CloudTec technology that gives the midsole of its shoes a unique look and feel and — in the brand’s words — makes you feel like you’re running on clouds.

Now, the brand is set to unveil a new innovation, which it says will be its most transformative technological breakthrough since the invention of CloudTec 15 years ago.

LightSpray is a new “spray-on” manufacturing technique which allows for the creation of ultralight one-piece uppers — the fabric section of the shoe which covers the top half of the foot — created by a robotic arm which is capable of producing one shoe in three minutes. The seamless, lace-free design has already become a hit among On’s athletes such as Kenyan long distance runner Hellen Obiri who won the Boston Marathon in April wearing the Cloudboom Strike LS, the brand’s first running shoe to carry the new technology, which will hit the market this autumn, retailing at $330. The Cloudboom Strike LS weighs just 170 grams, considerably less than the lightest running shoes on the market currently, which typically start from 180 grams.

Innovations like this are crucial for sneaker brands, who need to keep finding new ways to keep people excited about (and buying) their products. This is especially true for newer brands known for one core product or technology. On’s foundational appeal is the unique look and feel of its CloudTec midsole, but that has existed for over a decade now, which is a long time in the highly competitive running footwear market.

Much like CloudTec, LightSpray was inspired by a weird and wonderful spark. This time, it was a glue gun designed to create Halloween costumes that got the team at On Labs thinking about how they could create running shoe uppers with the single spray of a robotic arm, said Ilmarin Heitz, On’s senior director of innovation.

Not only does the technology give a boost to the athletes using On’s footwear, but the greatest value of LightSpray is the production capabilities it gives the brand, Heitz said. The relative speed and ease of production mean more products can be manufactured closer to home, while the process generates 75 percent less carbon emissions compared to On’s other racing footwear, the brand says. One shoe takes just six minutes to produce from start to finish, On says, up from a weeks-long process for the creation of regular footwear. Heitz said the team at On Labs had already produced thousands of units from the brand’s Zurich headquarters using the one robotic arm.

The development of the LightSpray technology is well timed for On. There is no better stage for a sportswear brand to exhibit a new product or technology’s performance capabilities than the Olympic games, and several of the brand’s athletes have already committed to competing in the Cloudboom Strike LS in Paris this summer. On will take its technology on the road during the games with live manufacturing demonstrations in Paris. The brand is also working on the development of running spike footwear using the new technology, Heitz told BoF.

On plans to roll the technology out across other performance footwear models and is thinking about how it can be applied to lifestyle silhouettes in the long term.

“The only reason why innovation is justified is when you can scale it,” Heitz said.

On’s strides in athletic footwear come as the brand simultaneously invests further in its lifestyle categories and cultural partnerships. In recent months it has launched its tennis apparel category, expanded its long-running Loewe collaboration, released collections with Beams and Post Archive Faction, and announced high-profile partnerships with FKA Twigs and Zendaya.

The Zurich-based running sneaker brand remains in high-growth mode. It reported record quarterly net sales of CHF 508.2 million ($560.9 million) for the period ended March 31, up 21 percent year-over-year. The bulk of the growth was driven by the expansion of its direct-to-consumer business, which generated revenue of CHF 190.5 million, up 39 percent compared to the same period in 2023. Meanwhile, net income increased by 106 percent to CHF 91.4 million ($100.1 million), up from CHF 44.4 million.