Retailing in salons and spas made easy...

Salons and spas spend a lot of time making sure their guest experience is perfect. They want to make sure the facility is clean, attractive, and pleasant for the guest.

The amazing mistake that almost EVERY salon or spa makes is retail. The owners have a view of how retailing should be done in this industry. It is based upon the experiences they have had at other top places they have visited or read about. They are also helped in the retail area by the furniture manufacturers from this industry. And because of all this... Retailing is horrible in salons and spas!!!
Who is the biggest retailer?

World's largest retailer

Walmart. They sell roughly 1 of every 3 products we buy, period. They do not share their receipts tapes with the industry, but it is known that they do 1/3 of every manufacturers business. We should pay attention. And for that matter, where do you buy most of products you use personally. Grocery stores and drug stores. I know you HATE to compare yourself to these types of retailers. You would rather compare yourself to more upscale retailers.

Ok, how about Sephora? They are in the industry and they are upscale and they do a LOT of business. What do all those retailers have in common?

Retailing on "real" shelving

Gondola shelving. Lozier shelving. It might look ugly to you, but all these retailers use it. They use it because it is the most efficient use of space. It allows vendors/manufacturers to merchandise in a way that your guest is familiar. They can use strips to put pricing on shelf. Many manufacturers create merchandising that is designed to fit on top of this type of shelving.

Mirabella Open Sale Unit

You can see it for yourself in any of the distributor stores, Saloncentric or CosmoProf. I am selfish in this information. Yeah, I want you to be better retailers, sure. But at our Spring trade show season we launched our open sale unit. It is a unit like you would find in Ulta and Sephora.

Completely revolutionized Cosmetics retailing

It allows your guest to chose cosmetics on their own. Sephora taught the cosmetics industry that woman are knowledgable. They want to chose their own lipstick, eye shadow, and foundation.

In the fall we are going to begin rolling these out to our distributor stores. It will dramatically increase our sales. But then what? Salons and spa shelving is beautiful, but not functional for "real" retailing concepts like this. Please salons and spas, consider gondola shelving. It will dramatically transform your retailing potential. And it will give me somewhere to out these amazing units that will allow salons and spas to take a chunk out of this $7 billion color cosmetics industry!