Dupes and Co<\/a>. <\/p>\nShe launched the fragrance brand in 2025 because she wanted to create luxury fragrances at affordable prices.<\/p>\n
Ms Hardy said the idea came to her when she was travelling internationally and her luggage was too heavy, she ended up having throw-out a premium perfume that she was gifted that retails at $900. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had to throw it and I was bawling my eyes out at the airport,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Even though she was gifted the item throwing out a $900 perfume sucked and it made her wonder why there weren\u2019t more affordable options considering ever young woman she knows is obsessed with scents. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had look at the Australian market and a lot of the perfumes are made overseas and I wanted to create something that was made in Australia and I wanted them to be 100ml bottles,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The idea was simple but clever and the business has managed to drive $1 million in revenue in the first 12 months. <\/p>\n
Ms Hardy said she does not shy away from the fact she has launched a dupe brand, where you can buy more affordable versions of iconic scents. <\/p>\n
The 21-year-old became an adult in the middle of the cost of living crisis, and she\u2019s noticed that Gen Z aren\u2019t as obsessed by labels as Millennials are. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone just loves dupes,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt funny because dupes used to be a scary term for people, like if you shopped at Kmart it was embarrassing, especially middle-aged women they couldn\u2019t wrap their heads around it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young business owner pointed out there\u2019s less stigma around buying dupes now because everyone needs to save where they can. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think my generation is proud to shop the dupe because people don\u2019t have a choice anymore and you feel like you\u2019re betraying yourself if you\u2019re wasting money,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Ms Hardy said young people are more conscious about spending then previous generations because they\u2019re truly worried about their financial future. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe rental crisis and the housing crisis has meant that (spending lots of money) just isn\u2019t an option for people and I wanted to create genuinely good products for the Aussie community to indulge in,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think my generation is proud to shop the dupe. Everyone is honestly so supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n
She admitted she isn\u2019t sure how much it costs to start the business; at a certain point, she lost track, but she has invested a lot. <\/p>\n
The 21-year-old said she has always invested heavily in advertising and sometimes spends over $100,000 a month on marketing. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t compete if you don\u2019t constantly have marketing and it is a beast,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n
Nevertheless the strategy has worked and the young business owner said her simple idea has become incredibly successful and customers have \u201cgone crazy\u201d for it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been blowing up and it is exciting and stressful,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Alongside the success, she\u2019s also mixed things up. Dupes and Co is primarily an online business, but she\u2019s also run pop-ups to connect with customers in person.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s done four in Australia, gone international, and even doing a pop-up in Las Vegas, America \u2013 next week. <\/p>\n
She was certainly onto something with Dupes and Co, and her idea that Gen Z aren\u2019t just brand-motivated because the business is going gangbusters.<\/p>\n
She also doesn\u2019t aim to be a sellout brand. The business had massive days late last year on traditional sale days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but she worked hard to keep quantities in stock. Although a few did sell out. <\/p>\n
In general, though, she wants her brand to feel accessible, easy, and reliable, and the customers love it. <\/p>\n
Ms Hardy said that often, she\u2019s so busy with the day-to-day that she forgets to acknowledge the wins. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have said it so many times to my team, \u2018Can we just sit down and talk about the fact we have done $1 million in revenue?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is honestly insane to wrap my head around, and I feel so proud of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A determined Aussie has revealed how she bought her first home at just 18 during a housing crisis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-336721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}