Postings to Leaside Facebook Monday say the Shoppers Drug Mart at 1601 Bayview was robbed of expensive perfumes and cosmetics by three men. The poster, Jennifer Peattie, has heard that the value of the goods at retail was something like $50,000. Given the prices of many fancy name products, it would not be hard to hit that figure quite quickly. This form of robbery is not new to South Bayview. In 2018, a man and woman swept many shelves of cosmetics at the Rexall store at 325 Moore. Quotes like this reflect the cynism about the cost of cosmetics.
For perfumes the profit margin can be up to 90 percent. The liquid in the bottle is only three percent of the price. The rest of the price goes into the packaging, overhead costs and mostly into the marketing. So if you pay 70 dollars for your Armani, Hugo Boss, Gucci or Guess fragrance, you will only get a liquid that is worth two dollars. Of course you need a bottle so in total you will get something of a value of six dollars.
