The holiday season is typically the busiest time of year for nail salons, when techs are booked solid and retail sales are booming. But what about the rest of the year? Do your retail sales falter come January? Michael Kerzner, president and CEO of professional nail product distributer Premier Nail Source stresses that it’s important for salon owners to focus on retail sales year round if they expect to maximize profits. “Salon retail is an essential piece of your business, as it has the potential to add significant profitability to the bottom line,” he says. “Best of all, it doesn’t require any additional service time from busy nail technicians.”
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To boost retail sales any time of the year, Kerzner offers some key pointers that are easy to put into practice when salon owners understand the fundamental nature of client purchases. “There are two basic categories of salon retail products: products your clients need and products your clients want,” he explains. The former includes those related to the health of their nails, such as nail strengtheners and fungus treatments. “When you see clients with issues ranging from weak, peeling nails to fungal infection, you should be prescribing the products to best remedy these issues,” he says, recommending that techs perform an initial application
at the salon and then provide clients with instructions for applying the treatment themselves at home. “By doing so, you’ve just used your expertise to resolve your clients’ nail issues while making a retail sale that will increase your income,” Kerzner says.
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Most products that clients want, on the other hand, are impulse buys, “so you don’t need to worry about competing with retail stores and e-commerce websites,” Kerzner says. The most common impulse buy in nail salons, according to Kerzner: nail polish. To make it easy for clients to pick up a bottle on a whim, stock your salon with a wide selection of the most popular shades and current collections, including those that match your professional dip and gel colors. “It isn’t out of
the ordinary for a woman to purchase a specific shade of nail polish to match a particular outfit or for a special event,” he says. In addition, Kerzner recommends stocking retail sizes of the lotions and scrubs that you use in the salon, as many clients want to purchase the same brands and products used in their services. His final words of wisdom: “Use these tips to focus on driving retail sales, and give yourself a nice raise this year without having to do any additional services.”
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