OK calm down!!!!

Made you look though didn’t it?, bear with me

I am NOT selling anything on fleabay, retail or otherwise.

I was just trying to think out of the box to increase my retail sales and with the exciting new Colour Revolution will be investing quite a large percentage of my current budget.

So , I’m just playing Devil’s advocate for a moment and not mentioning any company in particular:

Let’s take professionally recognised retail products such as enamel, base coat, or top coat

The company supplying the products to me do not retail to the public to protect us the professionals, their customers . They , on our behalf, spend time and a great deal of money advertising their products to make themselves a household name. They do however supply me at wholesale prices, knowing and expecting me to retail these to clients at RRP’s.

Clients come to my salon to have treatments because they know I will be using products that have an excellent reputation, and I can then use this opportunity to retail them the same colour polish with base and topcoats.

OK so far? Good lol.

So what happens if a client admires enamel they think their daughter/sister/mum etc would like for their birthday? Do I say “Oh no sorry, I can’t sell you that without a professional consultation with your daughter/sister/mum?

No, I say “I’m sure they would love that, why not have a good base coat and topcoat to go with it, we have a buy two get one free deal on at the moment” and take their money!

I may have a home based salon or be mobile so have no ‘shop window’ to attract clients’ for retail.
I have a website but setting up a sales section would take ages (as we know from certain sweet and lovely distributers)

Soooooo………. Why shouldn’t I use 21st century technology and retail through an easy to use outlet?

It would be me paying the fees, packing and posting etc. I would not be undercutting other salons. I would not be under pressure from a TV channel to cut my prices because of their buying power and if done correctly could obtain advice from my distributors as to safety etc for posting.

Right, your turn. You can have a dig now lol

p.s. I know geeg’s opinion!!

Personally for me, the issue isn't that of actually selling on the internet, although of course I abide by whatever any of my suppliers rules regarding that, but more of undercutting the professional retailers, and therefore damaging the professional business that way.

Take a quick look at the aforementioned internet auction site (I just did for the purpose of this thread) and found CND enamel on there for £3.99. For goodness sake, once I've paid VAT and absorbed my cost of postage across a few bottles, I can't even purchase wholesale it for that!

So for me....I believe that if suppliers allowed an internet free for all on retail sales then I suspect there would be an increase in competition, it would adversly affect the selling price and it would therefore devalue the actual retail value of a product within the salon. Just my two penneth...

I think S2 would take a dim view of anyone selling below the recommended retail price. That is why there is a recommended retail price.

I've seen it all now, someone is selling on auction, yes folks, SELLING a CND colour Effects Brochure on fleabay for 99p starting bid plus £1.50 postage Must be sad or desperate ( or both)

I wonder how long it will be before the bottles appear? they won't be getting any of mine I want to keep them all for ME oh, I suppose my clients can have them to lol

WOW a hard one.

I know that here you can sell at any price you like. If I wanna sell without profit I can do that legally. And people do cut down on the retalprice, some even so much you can just see that these are selling on the side of let's say education or even work . And how to compete with that?

Well what people (here at least) sometimes don't realise is the retailprices is based on a certain profitmargin for us, so by "bidding" under you throw away some profit, and that's just plain stupid as retail is what we should really make our money on. It might increase retail a bit but I don't think it'll have people driving for ages to save a very few quids!

Then the fleabay thing, well as time goes by I have noticed more custemors are able to realise that it's not cheap (often p&p is high unless you buy multiple items and still) you don't always get what you pay for and you most certainly don't get the customer service and chance to hold the product in your hand.

Instead of doing a webshop why don't you set up your website with all the products pictured and a description, and then tell people to come and try the products before selling. And then frequently have one or two items you make yourself sell to every client (or try)??

Just my thoughts sorry for the long rant....

I agree, set up a website and sell the products there. I found myself in a similar situation with the scaling down of my salon I no longer need the big salon rack of colours and really wanna shift them to make way for colour effects. I am setting up a freeweb page with tips, tricks and special offers to help sell off my enamels.