Buying a Salon? Part One

Snugglepuss

I was pondering the thought, that now all my children are either at school or work, whether I should continue to work from home or look into buying/renting a salon. I am sure many of you who have asked yourself the very same thing and for some they have obviously carried out their dream of opening a salon in the high street!

So how to go about it? Well I will share the information I have found out. You must take into consideration several things before jumping in with both feet first – like:

Do you have what it takes?
Opening hours.
Choosing the district.
Choosing the location.
Do you want to buy a going concern?
Do you want to start a new business?
How much stock will you need?
What to stock.
How you will display your stock etc.
Method of payment.

Do you have what it takes?

This is the first most important question IMHO. You have to be prepared for a lot of hard work and long hours. When we were small, we all at some point played shops – whether it be a sweet shop or a car shop and it seemed like an ideal job to be in. All the products and services were there and we had no worries. Unfortunately, in reality life is not so idyllic.

You will not only have the actual day to day work to do, but once the closed sign is showing, you will then have other duties to do. For example, you will have to ensure that the Salon is clean, your stock is up to date, accounts are kept up to date, cash up, ensure you know what you are doing for the next day – it certainly will not be 9 to 5!

Another thing you will need to have, is good people and social skills – at some point you will encounter an unhappy customer and you will need to be aware of how to handle the incident. No matter how you feel about it, you will have to remain calm, polite, patient and helpful EVEN if the client has provoked you – remember if you offend a client, they are unlikely to return!

Finally, you have to believe in yourself.

Opening hours.

Life is now lived at a very fast speed and at one time you knew that you could clock off at 5pm. Now, you will be expected to work late nights and fit in clients at a drop of a hat to suit their needs, not yours. You will have to be tough and also consider whether it is worth just adding in another client after you are technically are closed, or if it will be a rod for your own back in the future?

Choosing the district.

A very important part of choosing the district and indeed the location (each are slightly different) is whether you have carried out any market research? Or whether your chosen area is over saturated? So take these factors into consideration.

You will already have an idea of where you would like to open your new business and use this idea as your starting point. If it turns out that it would not be ideal, then ditch that idea like a tonne of bricks! It will be a lot harder to be successful if you are continually worrying about choosing the wrong district or location.

Find out if the district is prospering or declining. EG. it is known in the business world that currently China is prospering. Therefore, this country and others are looking to promote their businesses there. It works the same way in the Nail and Beauty world. Look for a town that is prospering and you are more likely to succeed there than if you were to set up your business in a poorer, declining area.

To do this, check out if there are a lot of for sale or to let signs on the shops?
Have a lot of companies closed down recently?
Are people moving to other areas?
Private houses which are up for sale, are they selling quickly? If not then new people are not coming into the area.

Look at what shopping centres are nearby. This will give you an indication as to whether people are willing to travel or if you would have to make do with people local to that area. Is the area near to schools, colleges, offices or industrial estates? Clients seldom go far afield on their lunch hour for example or may take an hour or so out to have a treatment BUT the downside to this is that you may not be busy on a Saturday. Also look at other reasons why people come to that district. Does the district have a swimming pool, gym, library, museum, railway station or just lots of other high street shops? Clients all could potentially walk past your window and walk in the door!

Choosing the Location.

So we have looked at the district now it is the location! For a salon, nothing is more important than location and for most, the more prominent the better because despite the fact that most of your customers will be regulars, some clients will be passer-bys who call in.

A small shop in a little village will not encounter much passing trade and mainly have clientele of local people. Usually in these type of situations, competition with another Salon will not only cause bad feeling but also potentially put you or another Salon out of business as there may not be enough clients for more than one salon.

However, it can work to your advantage (up to a point) in a high street shopping centre. People travel to the shopping centres and clients like to have a choice and also they will at some point walk past your salon frontage. Avoid, the quiet end of town – every high street has one and look for a property which is sited next to somewhere pedestrians have to pause for a moment like a pedestrian crossing, a bus stop or near a parking place.

Part two coming soon