13 August 2021
While your salon may have customer experience planned down to the tiniest detail, you may still be losing out when it comes to retail. Recommending homecare products can become a serious supplement to a salon experience for customers, so it’s worth investing in
Retail is often an area of your salon business that is neglected in favour of ensuring that your treatments and digital marketing are performing as they should be. However, making sure your salon is effectively recommending and promoting your retail products can gain your business a lot of profit. If your retail is not managed well or promoted, you may end up with a lot of hair or beauty products in stock that are unlikely to be sold. At SalonIQ we class these products as ‘dead stock. Having unused stock is a drain on the salon’s finances, as products that you have spent money on end up just sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
This article will give you a guide to recommending retail products in your salon and how to maximise your profits from your sales.
This may seem obvious, but before starting your retail sales and buying more products, consider your target market. What are your clients spending during each visit and what products do they really need? If you have a lot of high-end clients who spend a lot on each treatment, then stocking retail products at a higher price range will probably still sell. But if a lot of your clients have a lower price range, students for example, having good quality products at a low price point is important if you want to be able to sell them routinely.
As well as making sure the price of your products fits your business, ask your team to consider if each product they are recommending is needed by your client. For example, if your client prefers to maintain their hair or skin without using a lot of extra products or time, then recommending complicated hair styling products and face oils will probably not interest them. However, if they have hard to manage hair, recommending a detangling brush and oil to use could really help them with their homecare and be a product they will order again and again.
In order to market your retail products, you can use your website, social media accounts and monthly emails to clients. Here are a few methods to consider:
When it comes to recommending retail products your website can become your best asset, both as a marketing tool and to sell your products. Using your SalonIQ salon software, you can set up an online shopping page on your site to recommend your products online. Using an online shop, you can alter your site to display customer reviews of the products, as well as detailed descriptions that are easier to read than the ones on the product itself.
When it comes to the products that clients decide to use, many have requirements that need to be kept in mind, such as sulphate-free shampoos and vegan products. Your website enables you to give detailed explanations of the product that may not be possible in the salon.
Encouraging your customers to review any of the products they have previously bought is a great way to reassure other clients that it is the right product choice for them, especially if it is a more sizable product, such as a hairdryer. Statistics show that consumers now routinely check customer reviews before making a purchase, with multiple positive reviews greatly increasing the sales of a product.
There are three great benefits to having an online shopping section on your salon website. Here are some below:
Retail is a part of the salon experience, your team will more than once say that they are not salesman and they do not sell, however they are doing this without even realising. Have you ever organised an education session with your rep who supply’s your products to go through how each product works and how to get the most from it? If you have I am pretty sure you will have noticed your retail sales increase directly after this. Why does this happen? Your team are focused, they are feeling confident and the detail of how to use a product is fresh in their heads. They know what they need to say and do. They are already demonstrating how to use the product when they apply it to their client’s hair. All that’s left is for your team to keep their clients up to date on what they are doing each step of the way.
When a client walks into your salon, they are looking for fantastic client experience that will revamp their style and make their hair easier to manage and style. When their stylist can gives them not just a fantastic haircut, but advice on how to take care of their hair at home and recommendations for their hair type in between visits, it can help your clients maintain their style and increase the sales of your retail products all in one go. This is a fantastic way to increase client retention rates as well as retail sales.
To increase retail sales further, you can use SalonIQ homecare recommendation system, this will boost your retail sales in no time. This system allows your team to add product recommendations to your client’s record card, which can then be linked to any email or SMS communication so that your client can see the online shopping link to each of the recommended products.
If you are contemplating using our SalonIQ software to help your salon increase your retail sales, then please contact us here. Our team would be delighted to discuss with your salon what our software can do for you.
Call a member of our team today on 01892 280 123
