Regardless of space, a salon’s retail area should never be an afterthought, stresses salon business expert, Liz McKeon. 

Retail merchandising helps strengthen your brand’s identity. It creates awareness of your products and begins to help plant a seed that can develop a desire to buy.  There is unlimited potential to increase turnover and improve cash flow within the salon or nail bar by focusing on and increasing retail sales.

This sales process will have a positive impact on figures, increasing turnover for the salon and commission for the happy salon staff.

However, the approach to the display and merchandising of retail products can be quite poor and sometimes even overlooked in nail bars and on salon floors.  As a nail tech you know more about nails than the counter staff in any retail outlet, so why lose sales to local retail outlets, such as pharmacies, supermarkets or online stores just because you haven’t given enough thought and attention to effective merchandising.

Merchandising refers to how products are categorised and grouped together to enhance them and encourage clients to buy.  Effective merchandising views selling from the client’s point of view, and since a huge percentage of purchases are made on impulse, merchandising strives to make purchasing products as easy as possible for clients, while increasing profits for the nail bar.

Stock Levels:

• Revise and re-examine all your stock levels.
• Make sure you have all your best-sellers in stock.
• If you are out of stock of an item, communicate this to all staff, so they don’t recommend a product you don’t have in stock at the time.
• Place regular small orders until you have your stock levels correct.
• Make sure you have enough, but don’t tie money up in stock that isn’t selling.

Source: Comfortel

The merchandising process must contain these three elements:

• Products:  according to your market, are the right product types and brands present in the point of display?
• Position:  location – are the products placed in the ideal location in the client traffic flow?  Are products in the right section, in order with market leaders and in order of package size?  Are the products rotated to keep stock fresh and in date?
• Presentation:  pricing – are the products clearly priced?  Do you use point of sale materials strategically?  Are all the products and units/shelving/counters clean and attractively displayed?

You may even need to take some photos of your retail displays from different perspectives to see you salon as your clients see it!

Source: Comfortel

And finally, check out your competition and see how they use all the ‘tools of the trade’, for example samples, testers, product information to enhance their sales.  Learn new and effective silent selling skills that can be taken back to your nail bar and implemented, allowing you to grow your business.

Words: Liz McKeon

Main image: Comfortel