Qatar Duty Free offers personalised bottles for purchases of Dior's La Collection Privée

• Passengers at Hamad International Airport, Doha can explore Dior’s gardens in the French Riviera
• Qatar Duty Free and Dior to gift scented roses to travellers in celebration of Dior’s new La Colle Noire scent 

The Dior Les Parfums installation is inspired by the Provence rose.

The beauty of the south of France has been recreated in Doha by Qatar Duty Free and Dior with the unveiling of a wall of pink roses at Hamad International Airport (HIA). The 180 sq m Dior Les Parfums installation, inspired by the rose de mai (Provence rose) – the signature bouquet of Dior’s new fragrance La Colle Noire – will greet visitors with a full sensory experience from July until September 2016.

Visitors to Qatar Duty Free can enjoy a perfumed flower garden modelled after Dior’s flower garden in the Château de La Colle Noire, France, while listening to live violin music. Visits to the Dior garden will be completed with a scented rose gift that embodies the beauty and delicacy of the new fragrance.

Qatar Duty Free is also gifting free perfume personalisation to all customers who purchase one of Dior’s exclusive La Collection Privée range from the stand, with the opportunity to have the perfume bottle engraved with a name or message.

Senior Vice President Qatar Duty Free Luis Gasset said: “Shopping at Qatar Duty Free is truly an extraordinary experience for our customers. Our range of luxury brands and exclusive offers are complemented by excellent customer service and incredible experiences that make a visit to Qatar Duty Free in HIA an unforgettable part of the journey.

“This exclusive Dior promotion, the latest brand collaboration for Qatar Duty Free, is part of our ongoing strategy to customise and tailor our offers for our customers who have the opportunity to choose from one of the biggest collections of beauty brands, fragrances and cosmetics, in any airport in the world.”


Commercial Director Travel Retail at Dior, Frank Dagher Hayeck said: “After the great success of the first edition held in 2015 at HIA, we are glad to present our brand new Dior Les Parfums Pop Up 2016 in collaboration with Qatar Duty Free. This year, we will go even further with this partnership, proposing to all the travellers passing through HIA from July to September a unique customer experience while exploring our exclusive podium and all of its numerous treasures: its hundreds of Grasse roses rising up to five metres high, La Colle Noire, (the) famous Christian Dior house, a true quete d’essence with Francois Demachy (Editor's note: Perfumer-Creator, Dior) and many more while getting unique Dior personalised gifts for themselves or their loved ones.”

Qatar Duty Free operates the retail experience at Hamad International Airport (HIA) in addition to an outlet at Doha Port. It is the second-largest duty free operator in the Middle East. At HIA Qatar Duty Free offers 40,000 sq m of combined retail, food and beverage facilities, establishing the retailer as a premier shopping and dining destination.

Personalisation is key to e-commerce success

Online revenues boil down to knowing what the customer wants and personalising the experience for him or her accordingly, says online fashion marketplace Zalora, which was at the 2014 Influential Brands: Celebrating brand leadership and Asia brand heroes conference to speak about reaching out to different audiences for digital business.

Founded in 2012, Zalora carries 20,000 products, more than 500 brands and supports multiple touch-points for sales. “We make it as convenient as possible,” Zalora Marketing Director Dione Song said, pointing out that Zalora purchases can be collected at 7-Eleven convenience stories, SingPost's POPStations, or through cash-oh-delivery arrangements.

The company recently invested in a pop-up store at the popular Ion Orchard mall to bring the products to those who are still uncertain about buying online. “Our vision was to bring e-commerce to the offline space. We allow you to get over the barrier of online shopping, show you the product, allow you to try it, but you can’t buy it,” Song explained. The experience can help people to get used to the idea of ordering online and getting their purchases delivered in one or two days instead of the inconvenience of carrying the purchases around, she said.

Song added that Zalora does not segment its customers into ‘Gen X’ or ‘Gen Y’ as the company believes customers are not homogeneous in age segments. “It doesn’t mean that if you’re in an age class that you all act the same way. Customers are very discerning. They know what quality is, they know what they want to pay. We target customers as individuals,” she said.

The experience goes all the way down to personalised web browsing experiences and newsletters, she said. Customers who have browsed one brand are shown complementary brands that are similar. New customers may receive an added incentive to buy, while repeat customers are introduced to in-house labels which they might not have been open to as new customers.

‘Sharks’, people who hunt for discounts, are given bundled deals, whereas those who are more likely to spend more are shown designer brands. “If a customer has looked at shoe pages 10 times, we show you shoes. Everyone has a personal experience. They see a different page but they do not know it,” she said.

Newsletters from Zalora.

Zalora even knows how many times its e-newsletters are read per month, and may change the email subject titles or push special promotions to inactive customers.

"Understanding of a consumer through a behavioural analytical study is important for businesses, not only for the digital businesses. The brand’s strategies should be mapped against the consumer purchase journey which covers multi platforms from which consumers are most likely to be reached when they are commuting to how they purchase, where and why,” said Song.