Of course, there was no forest back in 1995, when Mr. Katz first began developing what would later become Fragrance Counter. Cyber-merchants were rare, and the online medium had yet to prove that mainstream consumers would shop electronically. Mr. Katz knew his online store was anything but a sure bet. But he was an online buff himself, and confident that more and more consumers would get wired. And after doing some research, he concluded that selling fragrances by mail wasn't a wacky idea.
People know what the products are.
So with AOL, he worked out a deal for an electronic store under which Fragrance Counter would pay the online service commissions on sales. Then he convinced the executives at Allou to authorize money to design the store and photograph boxes of perfume to display online. Fragrance Counter opened for business on AOL in September 1995. I'll never forget it. The next day there were 65.