Duty-Free fragrances: Buy at your own risk.
After a couple of trips recently through airports and seeing some questions bantered back and forth on public blogs, I felt it was time to give my own take on the pitfalls of duty-free shopping, and why not to shop duty-free for fragrances.
Everyone who has traveled internationally has had the experience of waiting by the departure gates in the airport. Unless you are flying business or first-class, your choices are pretty limited: Drink or shop in the duty-free. Sometimes both if you decide you’d rather buy liquor without paying taxes or fees. But other than booze, tobacco, watches or chocolates, your remaining choices are more cosmetics and fragrances. I’ll talk about cosmetics first, and this is an area where I’ll need to quote my wife’s comments on her experiences.
Universally, she usually finds the cosmetics selection very old or very stale, many to the point of being rancid or foul smelling. Lipsticks, gels, creams, and many of the things you can’t take through the TSA checkpoint are available, but you wouldn’t want them and they’d have unknown impact on the skin. And she’s had more than her share of bad experiences with these in the hopes of finding the one gem that might be worthwhile. I’ll cover some other issues in a moment, but since the turn-over in a duty-free store for any particular line of cosmetic can be “iffy”, she’ll browse, ask me to interpret the exchange rate, and determine if she might actually get a bargain.
This brings us to fragrances, and the news on this front is also not very promising. During my most recent trip, I conducted a rather unscientific survey of selection and pricing and reached some quick conclusions:
- Selection. This is where you’ll expect this blog to be somewhat negative on the selection, probably comparing it to what you’ll find in a typical Macys or Dillards. And you’ll be correct, with a couple of differences. There are one or two items that you may encounter that have been discontinued by the manufacturer or not marketed in a particular region (Dior’s Fahrenheit Absolute, for example). While not ancient, it also was not a large seller, so much of that stock has been pushed into Duty-Free as a secondary retail channel. The remaining selection? It’s what you would expect in mass-retail.
- Pricing. It’s usually not much better, or approximately retail less 10%. Tax is avoided, which in New York City is 8.875%. So for a traveler, a nearly 19% savings might look enticing. Let’s move to the other reasons on why that isn’t always the case.
- Freshness. Let’s face facts: Fragrances can go bad. Most Duty-Free shops I’ve toured seem to me to be warmer than usual, and it isn’t because I’m over-dressed or have had the hassle of hauling luggage and jostling clothes and shoes for the benefit of TSA Nazis. It’s warm. It’s also bright. Very bright. Any product being sold is kept in conditions not conducive to product longevity, such as warm display lights and blast-furnace temperatures. My wife’s comments on cosmetics hold equally true for fragrances, which will break-down more under such conditions. Added to that, the stock provided to Duty-Free is a secondary market: They are not getting new stock, and if you know how to read the lot numbers on the box, you’ll realize that a product might be 2-3 years old as it’s being shelved, longer until it’s sold. I found 2009 and 2008 vintages on my recent journeys in 2011.
- Turnover. Other than liquor and cheap cigarettes (or perhaps select cigars from certain countries), there isn’t much rotation of stock in and out: Once a product is sold out, that’s it. A less popular product? You can be the judge.
- Returns. I should note this as being non-existent. Once you’ve left the Duty-Free, you aren’t returning, nor will you get many products back through TSA checking to return to a duty-free shop. They count on this. So once you’ve purchased, defective or otherwise, the sale is final and you have no recourse other than possibly complaining to your credit card company.
Can you get a rare find through Duty-Free? Sure. Might you do well? Yes. You might also overpay. My wife purchased a Hermès fragrance in Duty-Free during her last trip, then later checked the price and asked me for the exchange rates. She quickly found that she hadn’t gotten much of a bargain. While not ripped-off, it wasn’t the bargain she expected.
All of this may seem somewhat biased against the Duty-Free trade, so to be fair, I will state we have looked at those items where values can be found. Unfortunately, fragrance and cosmetics is one of those categories where too many risks exist, and products can tend to have finicky shelf-lives. Any benefits are far outweighed by the risks and negatives of the transaction. The return risk alone is a show-stopper to us, since there is no merchant or retailer recourse standing behind the product.
If none of this was convincing, consider the following: Most of the cosmetics and fragrance products you can purchase from Duty-Free are available for less via on-line retail (a not-so-shameless plug for any of our merchants on the right of this page). Most offer low prices, low-cost or -no-cost shipping options, and have a higher turn-over for their products. And return options for any product defects are available or can be negotiated. For instance, a fragrance we found for suggested retail of $73 was available at Duty-Free for $65, but it was also available on-line for an average price of $47. Even with tax and standard shipping, your price would still be cheaper than airport rates.
Though we aren’t completely negative on Duty-Free shopping — liquor and tobacco are still great bets — we do not recommend it for more shelf-sensitive products, and that includes all cosmetics and fragrances. Buy at your own risk.
I'm Andrew Buck, the man behind the words. I'm a published author, project management practitioner for over 20 years, work on Wall Street, and am a fragrance aficionado. I've had a passion for fragrance for 30+ years, and enjoy trying scents and adding to an expanding and rotating collection for some time now. This site is dedicated not only to fragrance, but also to the notion that quality matters now more than ever. 
