5 Rules for Building a Product From Your Personal Order Data

Most product concepts begin in a gathering. Someone has a hunch, the staff falls in love with it and the shopper will get a vote solely after the cash is spent.

That sequence is pricey. When CB Insights studied 431 venture-backed startups which have shut down since 2023, poor product-market match was cited in 43% of failures it may hint. Plenty of firms already maintain a greater supply of fact than any brainstorm: their very own order historical past.

At Scento, the Paris-based firm I based in 2024, we hand-pour fragrance decants, small vials stuffed from authentic bottles, and promote greater than 3 million of them a 12 months, one each 10 seconds. Every a type of decants is a vote anyone paid to solid. I name constructing from these votes Bestseller-Backwards: begin from what clients already ordered, not from what you would like they’d purchase.

We put it to work on this 12 months’s fragrance creation calendars, two 24-door editions referred to as For Her and For Him, whose doorways we selected on Oct. 4. We let our order knowledge fill the doorways. Here is how that labored, rule by rule, together with the place I overruled the information.

1. Rank earlier than you brainstorm

Bestseller-Backwards begins with a ranked listing. For the calendars, we sorted our perfumes by gross sales over the earlier 12 months, then checked every identify in opposition to the final 90 days so a seasonal spike or a fading favourite couldn’t resolve a door.

Afterward, we measured the completed lineup in opposition to a second listing: each fragrance ranked by how typically clients ordered it on Scento.com between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2026. All six of the perfumes ordered most in that interval are inside, from Louis Vuitton Imagination at No. 1 to Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait at No. 6. Out of a catalog of greater than 1,000 perfumes, these six alone took multiple in 9 of all of the decants offered on Scento.com in that interval.

When six names carry that a lot of the amount, they belong within the product earlier than the brainstorm begins. All six additionally landed on the calendar’s greatest days: a December weekend, the final days earlier than Christmas, or door 24.

2. Count solely what clients paid for

Our rating counted a sale solely when a buyer paid for it. It omitted canceled and draft orders, present playing cards, bundles and the promotional kits we ship out.

Each exclusion strips out a sale that claims little about actual demand. A promotional package flatters a fragrance no person selected, and a bundle hides which scent inside it the shopper really needed.

The listing we later used to test the consequence additionally dropped absolutely refunded orders and free presents. Do that cleanup earlier than anybody sees the rating, as a result of as soon as a staff has a favourite, it’ll discover causes to maintain the messy model.

3. Cut the near-duplicates

A uncooked bestseller listing repeats itself. The high of ours held a number of variations and shut options of the identical few scents.

So no version received two near-duplicates. That rule price us robust sellers, together with Creed Absolu Aventus and Nishane Hacivat, a well known various to Creed Aventus, as a result of Aventus already had a door. Amouage Guidance 46 stayed out as a result of Guidance itself closes the calendar for her.

We additionally capped every fragrance home at two doorways per version. No fragrance seems in each editions, so a pair shopping for each calendars opens 48 completely different perfumes.

4. Give your leaders the very best seat

Where a bestseller sits issues virtually as a lot as whether or not it’s in. In an creation calendar, the very best seat is the final door, and every of ours ends on a bigger spray behind door 24.

Each version closes on its highest-ranked fragrance. The calendar for him finishes with Louis Vuitton Imagination, No. 1 on each our lists. The calendar for her saves its personal high vendor, Amouage Guidance, for the finale.

The remainder of the month is deliberate round consideration too. Door 1 is a crowd-pleaser, well-known names get the December weekends and the final days earlier than Christmas, and no two neighboring doorways come from the identical home.

Anything with a sequence or a hero slot works this fashion, from a product bundle to a software program onboarding circulation. Put your most-proven merchandise the place consideration peaks, even when that feels too apparent.

5. Cap the judgment calls

Bestseller-Backwards leaves room for judgment, simply not a lot of it. My personal picks took 5 doorways, all designer icons: Yves Saint Laurent Libre and Prada Paradoxe for her, and Dior Sauvage Elixir, Dior Homme Intense and Hermès Terre d’Hermès for him.

They stayed in even the place area of interest perfumes outsold them, as a result of a present purchaser acknowledges them at a look. Gifts carry actual weight on this class: Circana stories that status perfume present units sometimes symbolize greater than 25% of fourth-quarter gross sales within the U.S.

Set a ceiling on off-list picks earlier than you begin, and depend them if you’re accomplished. Once they outnumber the confirmed sellers, you’re constructing round your individual style once more.

Even with my 5 picks, the lineup reads like our bestseller listing. Against the January to September rating, 35 of the 48 perfumes sit within the high 50 and 44 within the high 100, and collectively they account for one in three of all of the decants offered on Scento.com in that interval.

Before your subsequent launch, run your individual Bestseller-Backwards take a look at. Pull 12 months of paid orders, clear them, rank them and see how a lot of your concept survives the listing.

Your clients have already informed you what to construct. The order historical past is the place they mentioned it.

Most product concepts begin in a gathering. Someone has a hunch, the staff falls in love with it and the shopper will get a vote solely after the cash is spent.

That sequence is pricey. When CB Insights studied 431 venture-backed startups which have shut down since 2023, poor product-market match was cited in 43% of failures it may hint. Plenty of firms already maintain a greater supply of fact than any brainstorm: their very own order historical past.

At Scento, the Paris-based firm I based in 2024, we hand-pour fragrance decants, small vials stuffed from authentic bottles, and promote greater than 3 million of them a 12 months, one each 10 seconds. Every a type of decants is a vote anyone paid to solid. I name constructing from these votes Bestseller-Backwards: begin from what clients already ordered, not from what you would like they’d purchase.