Looking around the affluent city of Cannes in southern France, Ben G. ’27 saw “Ferrari after Ferrari and yachts five times bigger than my house.” He’s at the Tax Free World Association (TFWA) World Exhibition & Conference 2024 — a world-renowned expo where budding entrepreneurs travel great distances to strike business deals — with his dad on a business trip. But don’t be fooled: it is not for his dad, it’s for Ben.
Ben, a current sophomore at Lakeside, explains that he flies to these “trade shows” to grow his six-figure perfume reselling company. His job? Acting as a middleman, he purchases perfumes from licensed international brands like Afnan (based in the UAE) and resold them directly to “anybody trying to smell better” on Amazon, Walmart, or TikTok.
While he’s incredibly successful now, it hasn’t always been easy — “The first time I tried e-commerce.” Ben recalls, “I got no sales. I couldn’t even sell to my mom.” However, he learned two things: One, the importance of advertisement when it comes to profits; two, “outsource work once you get the chance.”
Over the past 6 years, Ben has run seven businesses, five of which have completely failed. For example, Nike would have massive “hyped up” product releases where eager customers are given five minutes to enter to purchase, then get randomly chosen in a lottery.
Capitalizing on this arbitrage opportunity, Ben decided to set up “hundreds of bot accounts to buy as many pairs as possible.” Basically, he bought the sneakers at a cheaper price, then, due to the low supply of the sneakers and consumers’ incredibly high demand for them, he was able to resell them at a higher price.
After business started booming, Ben had to improvise: “I started web hosting a server so I could run more bots without my computer crashing. I would have thousands of accounts and get more pairs [of shoes] than anybody else. And then it kind of just grew exponentially from there.”
This was just one of the many examples of when Ben’s nimble analysis of the situation proved well. Soon, he would have another opportunity to use this strategy. Little did he know, this would change his life.
“A little over a year ago, the fashion niche was super big on TikTok shop and also massive in terms of money,” Ben explains. TikTok shop is an e-commerce feature on the TikTok app enabling users to buy and browse products directly within the app. By merging creator content with shopping, it allows TikTok fashion trends to seamlessly translate into impulse purchases. So, he decided to choose perfume as his primary product.
Day one, he got listings up for perfumes on TikTok Shop. “Did not expect too much out of them,” Ben recalls. But then, by some miracle, thanks to trends, his shop started showing up in searches.
“Then I started selling hundreds of units, and I didn’t have them in my house. I was drop shipping them which was honestly a perfect setup back then because I was making a margin and I didn’t risk any money. It started growing a lot and I started racking up quite a bit of credit card debt because of how much I was buying,” Ben describes. He also remarked that the “little competition” on TikTok shop back then greatly benefitted him.
That’s what led him to his life today. His daily routine now consists mostly of an average student, though perhaps with a few peculiarities: lift in the morning, browse the stock market (sometimes making a “couple hundred bucks”), attend class, go to crew, eat, shower, and work on his business. More often than not, Ben finds more enjoyment in working on his business than homework.
Conversely, he says “oftentimes, it’s pretty boring. Checking up on how the repricer’s doing because sometimes I’ll reprice my products. Checking up if there are any issues — something didn’t get scanned into a warehouse. There’s always something wrong. Sometimes if there’s things at the house, then I’ll package those up if I have the time.”
Much of the business, Ben was able to automate. However, there were a variety of problems early on regarding shipping logistics: perfumes are flammable and thus classified as hazardous materials, making them complicated to ship. He faced returns, failed deliveries, and of course, angry customers.
“If someone’s super upset, I’ll just give them their money back just because you don’t wanna make a whole mountain out of an anthill. Sometimes I’ll get bad reviews that I don’t agree with. One of my reviews said ‘The perfume you sold me was manufactured in quarter one of 2024 and I’d rather have it manufactured in quarter three of 2024 just so that it’s fresher.’”
Another rough spot, things weren’t looking good in early February of 2024. “I kind of just hit a dry spot,” Ben says. “TikTok shop sales weren’t really working [and] I didn’t really have other platforms set up. If you look at my overall sales, there’s just a massive dip. TikTok shop hype was dying around that time.”
But despite it all, Ben saw potential. He had spent all this time learning and developing this brand, and he had to hope that it would work out in the end. And it did.
When asked if he agrees with the statement that “the customer is always right,” Ben replies no. “I don’t know if the customer’s wrong, but it’s better to treat the customer as if they’re always right because you can’t have a good business without a good customer base.”
The biggest brand that Ben would sell was Afnan, a perfume company based in the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, popular individual scents include the aptly named Choco Musk which smells like “baked cookies.” Another fan-favorite was Afnan 9PM, one of his first bottles sold which also topped 40,000 bottles sold a month at one point. Personally, Ben only uses fragrances that can’t be sold for various reasons. He enjoys Uomo Born in Roma, an “aromatic sage-smoked vetiver.”
Another crucial part of his job is traveling to travel shows to strike deals with suppliers. One of the best ways to start business relationships, they’re set in “Costco warehouses” with lines and shelves of perfumes. Ben has been to several trade shows, including America’s largest retail trade show, ASD, in Las Vegas. However, more notably, he attended TFWA in France in late October, which was “targeted towards airlines.” Ben clarifies, adding that airports are a big seller of perfumes and duty-free items.
As the only kid at these shows, Ben, remarkably isn’t nervous. “I’m not really talking to the big bosses,” he mentions. His job is to “meet people, be nice, be charismatic, and then try to make a good relationship.” Even as the man “more knowledgeable than my dad,” though, he doesn’t do any of the one-on-one connecting, exclaiming “I mean, who really does want to do business with a 16 year old.”
But once Ben lands a deal with a supplier, the communication continues through WhatsApp and email, until he finally orders a shipment to resell. “One that I’m trying to buy directly that I think I’ll start buying tens of thousands of units in the next month or so is Latafa.”
As for the future, Ben doesn’t expect this to be his last business, explaining that there are simply other opportunities he wants to try. He plans to major in a business or finance-related field, not out of parental pressure, but out of passion.
“Failure is the best teacher”—Ben says that this is his favorite quote. Ben, throughout his childhood, failed with six online stores before achieving this one success.
When asked if he wanted to share his profit margins, Ben replied “I would prefer not to. I don’t want people to think of me differently. A trap that some people get caught in is spending more money than they have and getting caught with big spending habits and low income.”
Ben has achieved what any kid, or even adult could dream of. Yet he still is living a humble life and enjoying his high school experience to the fullest.
“I don’t care much about the money that much now… I just want to hit my goals and be happy.”
