I've noticed most in this forum are from the UK. I'm in the U.S.
I, along with many of my fellow nail professionals, have been undercut by the mass of Asian salons that do full acrylic sets for $12 and pink & whites for $15. My clients were honest that even though my work was beautiful, they just couldn't see paying me $35 for pink and whites with a gel overlay when they could pay $15 at an Asian salon, especially in this economy. I didn't have the volume of enhancement clientele to make a price that low price work for me.
The Asian salons have 10 - 12 nail technicians (I won't call them nail professionals) going at a time. They're like little assembly line workers.
For a while my clients would sporadically return to me to repair the horrific damage done to their nails plates from improper efiling done at the Asian salons. They would tell me horror stories of being "burned" by the efile and chemicals and I would see the damage firsthand. But it never failed, as soon as they saw me a couple of times and their nail beds were no longer sore, they went right back to the Asian salon because they were so much less expensive. After a while, I just told my clients that I no longer offered enhancements.
Do you guys have anything like that going on in the UK? Just curious.