If you’re a salon or spa owner, you know that selling products is a big part of your business.
But what if you want to reach more customers? Selling products in your online shop is the perfect solution.
In this post, I’ll explain how to establish an effective e-commerce solution to sell your salon or spa retail online.
Unleash Your Salon Retail Potential
One of the biggest unsolved challenges in modern salons is retail. Despite decades of training by brands and industry mentors, countless articles in the media, and resources provided by industry organizations to address this issue, retailing professional salon products to clients remains an area of significant untapped potential.
Some countries are better than others in this respect. Indeed individual salons, barbers, and spas will be better than others, but on average, the percentage of income achieved from selling products direct to clients remains staggeringly low.
In the more sales-orientated USA, retail may account for as much as 30%-70% of turnover; in the UK, it’s typically as low as 3%-10%. But, hair, beauty, and wellness businesses focus on providing a professional service, of which the products are essential.
But following a service or treatment, there’s a reluctance to sell the same products that have made their client look and feel sensational in the first place.
The reality is that most hairdressers, beauticians, and therapists feel uncomfortable ‘selling.’
And no amount of product prescription pads, convincing salons to see themselves as consultants, commission incentives, or positioning selling as an extension of their professional expertise has yielded much in the way of change.
When it comes to online sales, it’s a similar picture. The salon industry is behind the curve compared to other retail sectors, with many salons still without a website, let alone an online store.
During the pandemic, which saw salon businesses close indefinitely, those that offered clients a way of buying products online for home delivery or even via a collection service could at least generate some much-needed income. Those that didn’t, and still don’t, are at a competitive disadvantage.
So how can we fix this problem? How can salons change the situation for the long term, and how can clients buy online from salons just as they do from other retailers?
What do you need to Start Selling Online?
Many salon software platforms have online store capabilities built directly into the platform. The benefit of using your salon software’s store is keeping inventory in sync between the physical location and your online store.
However, the drawback is that the features available in these built-in online stores are limited. This might be ok for selling some gift cards or a few items. But if you want to build an online store that you can grow over time, I recommend using a dedicated online store platform for this and then set up inventory synchronization between your salon software and your online store.
The platform I recommend you use for building your online store is Shopify. This is the easiest yet most powerful solution for business owners like you. Many big brands started on Shopify and run large successful online businesses today.
Shopify also offers integration support. In fact, you can integrate Shopify directly with Mangomint – the best salon software right now.
Mangomint’s Shopify integration allows you to keep your inventory up to date between your online and physical location.
I just created a list of the best salon websites in 2023. And as part of that list, you’ll also see examples of salons and spas that are built on top of Shopify while using Mangomint for online booking and gift card sales.
It’s Time to Tell Your Salon Clients About Your New E-commerce Store
Once your store is set up and ready to go, it’s time to let your clients know.
Email and social media marketing will likely be you focus in the beginning. And as you start to learn how the store works and what sells, you’ll likely want to move to paid marketing alternatives.
Read my salon marketing guide to learn more about email and social media marketing.
