Can you make a decent profit doing mobile spray tanning?

[kirsty]

Hi,

I've completed my training and am now saving up for my kit. I'm just not sure whether I'm going to be able to make a decent profit being mobile. By the time I've taken off petrol and product costs, I don't think there will be much left! I know other people do mobile spray tanning so I'm guessing it must be profitable, so am I missing something?!

Thanks,

Kirsty x

 

[GEMMA20S]

Hi

There is a lot of money to be made in mobile spray tanning, in the last 4 saturdays alone, i have made at least £135 each day and this on top of my wages from my full time job, i had reservations about doing it when i first started out, but believe me if you put the effort in with advertsiing and promoting your business you will reap the benefits.
You will only get out of it what you put in to it, i am so booked up at the moment that im considering going part time as there just isnt enough hours in the day, you will have your queit days but your busy days make up for these, i am always booked up on wed, thurs fri and saturday mornings

I have been pretty much booked up since middle of march and have continued to do so since, my queit months are end of september, october and business picks up again in november and up to christmas for all the christmas parties etc, and again jan and feb are queit as well, but i still have clients for those months just not as many.

Hope this helps, because i was thinking exactly the same as you when i started xxx

 

[SomersetPysco]

Hi

There is a lot of money to be made in mobile spray tanning, in the last 4 saturdays alone, i have made at least £135 each day and xxx

Hi Gemma, what do you charge and is this figure after costs?

 

[GEMMA20S]

Hi

I charge £15 per tan or 2 tans for £25.

So for example for April i earnt roughly £500, out of this i bought 2 litres of solution which is around £80 and petrol costs which to be honest i dont really calculate, as all my clients are local but id say i spent £50 extra on diesel then my profit is £370 roughly.

As i work full time i dont really take diesel into considertion, when i eventually go full time which i am hoping to do so, i will then have to take diesel into consideration.
Mobile Spray Tanning has a high profit margin as a bottle of solution costs around £35 and i get 25 to 30 tans from one bottle.

hope this helps.

 

[kirsty]

I already work mobile doing nails and my clients are an average of around 10 miles away. My business pays 40p per mile, so a 20 mile round trip works out at a whopping £8!! A 1 litre bottle is around £40 so if I get 20 tans from a bottle (hopefully more when I'm more experienced) then each tan is costing around £2. So that's £10 total costs (avarage) which if I charge £15 per tan is only making me £5 profit, hardly worth leaving the house!

If everyone would book in with a friend it would be fine but that's not going to happen. I could do 2 tans for £25 like you gemma, to encourage double bookings but there will always be people who will book on their own and this is where I'm going to lose out.

Also, at the moment I can only really work during school hours so am limited to the number of clients I can see each day and can't work saturdays. I'm hoping that between nails and tanning I will be busier and will then look at putting the kids into an after school club and work more hours.

The only other thing I can think of is to have a minimum call out charge? Does anyone else do this?

Sorry for the long negative post, but I'm worried I may start this only to find it takes up a lot of my time for very little money, I can't afford for that to happen.

 

[Baggybear]

When working out your costs you have to remember to add everything in.

1) Your insurance costs have to be paid through your work so a small amount in every tan (and treatment you do) should be allocated for that.

2) What are you using to protect the feet?
*If a towel you have to lauder it so the cost of that has to be added (a percent of your electric bill, washing powder, water bill etc if washing them yourself OR the receipt from launderette if you send them out to be washed also the petrol/diesel costs for taking them & collecting them from launderette).
*If sticky feet you have to work out the cost of 1 pair.
*Or whatever you use you must work out it's cost per tan.

3) Are you using a barrier cream?
If so you have to split the cost of this through each tan.

4) Do you use hair net?
If so you have to work out what 1 hat costs.

5) Do you use wipes?
If you wipe the clients hands/fingers etc after a tan you have to buy the wipes and work out how much that costs per tan.

6) You have to test you gun on couch roll regularly so you have to add this cost to the tan too.

7) There is also the cost of advertising to cover.

All these things may only be pennies each to add but if you dont count them as a material cost you will not be balancing your books properly as you will think you have made more profit from each tan than you actually should have.
Try to think of every item you use when you tan someone and then work out how many tans you will get from each item - hats, you use 1 per tan so divide the cost of however many hats you buy by the price and you will have your cost per hat. Then note that down and work out the same thing for all other items you use. With the solution cost, 40p per mile for your petrol/diesel and your insurance cost (guess how many tans you will do in a year then divide you cost by the number of tans for you individual allocation).

Once you have all those figures and have added them up you will see your true costs and can then decide what you need to charge to earn a profit and exactly how much profit there is so you know if you do special offers or mates rates etc.. how cheap you can go without losing money.

Hope this helps.

 

[kirsty]

Thanks baggybear, I hadn't really considered the cost of all that!

 

[GEMMA20S]

Baggy Bear is right there is a lot to consider, i only work in a 10 mile raduis of where i live and thats for single tans, if a customer lives further than that, i give them a choice, 1. £5 charge extra or get another person round (2 tans for £25) and i will be more than happy to do it, i dont travel further than 15 miles really, otherwise id be losing out.

As baggy bear said you need to consider your accessories, but these are cheap, my hair caps cost me £10 for 200, my barrier cream was £6.00 for a big bottle and you only use a bit of it, and i dont use sticky feet pads i get my customers to stand on a black towel and i wipe there feet afterwards and i dont use paper knickers either, i get my clients to wear black underwear.

As for advertising i use all the free advertising websites, facebook, yell, i had business cards done on vista print which cost me £10.75 for 500 including delivery and my leaflets i did myself on the computer and print them off at home, i get 2 leaflets to every a4 piece of paper and gilletene them in half, there are lots of pros and cons to consider and it is down to your circumstances. But if you do go for it spray tan friends family etc first and this generates business, a lot of my clients have come from word of mouth.

Hope this helps as i know it can be confusing.xxxx

 

[Baggybear]

Baggy Bear is right there is a lot to consider, i only work in a 10 mile raduis of where i live and thats for single tans, if a customer lives further than that, i give them a choice, 1. £5 charge extra or get another person round (2 tans for £25) and i will be more than happy to do it, i dont travel further than 15 miles really, otherwise id be losing out.

As baggy bear said you need to consider your accessories, but these are cheap, my hair caps cost me £10 for 200, my barrier cream was £6.00 for a big bottle and you only use a bit of it, and i dont use sticky feet pads *i get my customers to stand on a black towel and i wipe there feet afterwards and i dont use paper knickers either, i get my clients to wear black underwear.

As for advertising i use all the free advertising websites, facebook, yell, i had **business cards done on vista print which cost me £10.75 for 500 including delivery and my ***leaflets i did myself on the computer and print them off at home, i get 2 leaflets to every a4 piece of paper and gilletene them in half, there are lots of pros and cons to consider and it is down to your circumstances. But if you do go for it spray tan friends family etc first and this generates business, a lot of my clients have come from word of mouth.

Hope this helps as i know it can be confusing.xxxx

*As I said the cost of laundering these towels should be billed to the business so a percentage of your electric bill (for running the washing machine) a percentage of your water bill, a percentage of washing powder (or if a specific box for work so full cost payable) also if you dry the towels in a dryer a percent of your electric bill again for that.

**The cost of these may be really good but you have to add the cost to your treatments to pay for them.

***You still have to pay for the paper to print on, the ink and the electricity costs so even printing your own leaflets costs - admitadley less than getting them printed professionally but the cost still has to be covered.

Dont get me wrong as I said in my first post the accessories and extra things I mentioned may still be only pennies on each tan/treatment but you need to know how much each tan/treatment is costing you.

If your doing other treatments you need to break down the costs in the same way to get at the actual cost to you for every treatment you offer.
Having the basic costs helps you to work out what offers you can do and still earn a profit as there is no point in doing an offer and then finding out you've lost money because for example you did 10 brow waxes at £3 each and your cost per brow wax is £5 - you would have lost £20 and that is £20 you need to put back out of other profit cause you have to cover your bills.

It is basic business sense to know what each treatment costs you - you dont have to memorise these just work them out on the computer and store the information or write them out and keep them somewhere safe. Dont forget that everytime costs go up you have to re-do your cost per treatment. For example when VAT went up from 17.5% to 20% everyone should have sat down and added that 20% onto their basic costs to ensure they were still working to get a profit and if not they would know where to put prices up and by how much and where they could hold the price if they wanted to.

Dont forget that you will want to pay yourself for the time you have worked too at some point and you will need to add your price per hour to the basic cost and still have a small profit to put back into the business - of course when your starting out you dont pay yourself (at least I'm not) you just put all the money earned back into the business to pay the bills and if there is a profit that can be used for further training or product expansion etc...

You also have to pay for all your equipment - your car, tent, machine, massage couch, manicure table, minx lamp etc.. all these costs have to be covered by treatments too as only a % of the cost of these items can be billed to the business every tax year.

 

[GEMMA20S]

Well said baggy bear

but fortunatly for me, i still live at home with my parents, so i dont at the moment have to consider electric costs etc, this comes in with my house keep lol

 

[Princess Stacey]

Well said baggy bear

but fortunatly for me, i still live at home with my parents, so i dont at the moment have to consider electric costs etc, this comes in with my house keep lol

But for tax purposes hun you should still work all of this out x x

Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

 

[lisa.sharrock]

Not read the whole thread but just noticed that your charging your business 40p/mile? This went up last month to 45p/mile. So make sure you're adjusting your figures accordingly.

 

[Princess Stacey]

But for tax purposes hun you should still work all of this out x x

Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

Sorry ignore that, if your only paying your house keeping money and not the bills then you wouldn't need to know, i don't think x x
Posted with my Droid EO Forum App

 

[GEMMA20S]

ok thanks x

 

[Baggybear]

Not read the whole thread but just noticed that your charging your business 40p/mile? This went up last month to 45p/mile. So make sure you're adjusting your figures accordingly.

Thank you Lisa. I'd forgotten the rise in allowance . I'm just sorting my books from Feb til April and that's why I had the 40p per mile in my head .

Need to show my books to someone ands want it all as correct as it can be. Will have to remember to change the details on my spreadsheet later to 45p per mile for all accounts from April 6th.

 

[muddi]

ooh I didnt realise it had gone up to 45p a mile - will adjust my figures accordingly.. Is it from beginning or end of April?

I charge £20 per tan - but I charge £15 for the 1st one then encourage them to get a friend in for the next time as I charge just £15 each instead of a single £20.. This works as I rarely have to charge for a single tan, but if I do then at least my costs are covered. I make sure I do a good and thorough job for each client and so far they have been more than happy with the prices and happy at the convenience of home tanning..

Just make sure you factor everything into your costs as has been said before. I am slowly building up the tanning side of my business - in fact its proving to be the most popular at the moment. Have just gained 1 client who now has a regular tan with her sister every 2 weeks and she has just said she is going to recommend me to a friend who has been looking for someone! woohoo!
So yes you can make a profit - but like anything else, factor all costs and make sure you are making a profit on each tan you do, and by word of mouth you will start to build up your business.. The harder you work at it and get word out and treat your clients well the more you will get back from it. Good Luck xx

 

[muddi]

ooh and dont be scared of charging too much - the ladies that have started coming to me used to pay just between £10-£12.50 for their tans, they are now paying £15 by having one together, but they said they are much happier with the tan and the service - so NEVER sell yourself short just because a salon is charging less x

 

[kirsty]

Not read the whole thread but just noticed that your charging your business 40p/mile? This went up last month to 45p/mile. So make sure you're adjusting your figures accordingly.

Thanks, I didn't know that! That reduces my profit even further

 

[kirsty]

I charge £20 per tan - but I charge £15 for the 1st one then encourage them to get a friend in for the next time as I charge just £15 each instead of a single £20.. This works as I rarely have to charge for a single tan, but if I do then at least my costs are covered. I make sure I do a good and thorough job for each client and so far they have been more than happy with the prices and happy at the convenience of home tanning..

That's a good pricing strategy!

 

[Baggybear]

Thanks, I didn't know that! That reduces my profit even further

No you missunderstand. You are now allowed to claim 45p for every mile you travel so it's more money for us not less .