How would you like to instantly increase your profits without doing much work? No, it’s not a get rich dodgy internet scam. There are five very simple but very effective ways you can increase your salon retail turnover with only a small amount of effort. Ways that even your most sales averse staff can adopt and bring in extra dosh.

Product understanding

Letting your client know why you are using your products is vital to increasing salon retail sales. You use professional products in your salon, and you should be selling them in your reception. However, a rack full of products for different hair types doesn’t automatically transfer into salon retail sales. Starting at the backwash to final styling, your staff should be extolling the benefits of the products they are using.

For example, when washing the hair, you could say, “This {insert product} is perfect for your hair, it will make it much more manageable/add volume/increase shine.”

After colouring, you could say, “Use {insert product} for the next six weeks. It will make the colour last longer.”

After cutting and styling, you may add, “I’m using the {insert product}. It’s perfect for your hair and will add a bit more texture without feeling sticky.”

None of these types of sales pitches are a hard sell, they’re simply educating your clients to what you’re doing and why they are needed for their specific situation. Done properly, and dropped into the conversation casually, they’ll never even know they’re being sold to!

Product handling

A bit more of a forceful sell, but an effective one, is placing a product directly into a client’s hand. Once it’s in their hand, especially if it’s particularly tactile, you increase the chance of a salon retail sale. A neat way to achieve this ties into the previous tactic, and can be subtly done.

Give your clients the product to hold and inspect

For example, as you finish the hair, you could say as before, “I’m using the {insert product}. It’s perfect for your hair and will add a bit more texture without feeling sticky.”

However, as you say it, you casually hand the client an unopened bottle, purely as a demonstration. They will naturally take it and look. Even if you take it away from them, it’s now in their mind and they are more likely to remember it and buy it at checkout.

Product placement

Now the client knows what you’ve used on their hair, knows why you used it and have touched it and etched it into their memory, you want them to buy it. Once they reach the sales register to pay for their service, they’ve usually walked past the salon retail display, or stood by it while you hand them their coat or didn’t even see it, because you have it hidden in a corner somewhere.

If you want to sell something, it has to be visible and in reach. Smaller inexpensive items, like gel and wax should be on a counter near to the register. Think of supermarkets placing chocolate bars next to the checkouts. They’re small items that people buy on impulse, but are highly profitable.

Have products on the counter at the point of sale

Make sure that your product display of larger items, like conditioner and shampoo are also prominently displayed and that point of sale materials, such as posters or counter mats are also in view. Don’t let the client forget the conversations and education they’ve had with you in the salon!

High ticket salon retail sales

Most of your sales will come from small ticket items such as products, they work as impulse buys and are affordable to most clients, but the techniques outlined can also be used for high ticket items like electrical goods or quality brushes. If your staff are all using pristine professional products that perform well, certain clients will remember this and buy them. There is always a type of client who only wants the best and will spend to get it.

Staff incentives and in-house competitions

All of the tactics outlined here depend on your staff to sell to your customers. However, not all hairdressers are natural salesmen. If they were they’d be selling cars, or stocks or vegetables or something. Other than hairdressing though, most hairdressers are good at talking and relating to people. Clients come back because they enjoy the experience as much as they love their new hair, and they consider their hairdressers as their friends.

Encourage your staff to use these simple, no invasive salon retail tactics to sell products with incentives, such as commission, prizes or staff outings. Give them small doable targets, such as £100 per week in sales. Hitting targets instils a sense of achievement, without turning your staff into hard selling, client repelling sales machines!

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