Professional Beauty North

[Catherine S]

I know someone has posted about the Manchester show in the nail section, but I was wondering from a skin geek point of view - how many of you went, and what did you think?

It was my first show and I must admit I found the Sunday quieter than I had expected. A lot of people are saying Professional Beauty North is nothing in comparison to a show like Olympia. But what do you all think?

 

[jillyflower]

I went on Monday and was very disapointed, too many stands with the same thing and not enough variety. just my opinion, you can only look at so many nail systems and tanning machines.

 

[laureng]

we went and were quite disappointed in certain stands, they seemed to have no offers on and some stands were selling products to students that weren't even qualified in those products. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere but when we are shelling out all that money to pay for the training courses and can't buy certain products from the wholesalers unless we have done the courses, yet at the show anyone could go in and buy the products!! Also, it annoyed us that you don't have to prove that you're qualified or training to get a ticket to the beauty show so any one could go in and buy the products that we work damn hard training for!! We work hard training so we should be entitled to the trade prices not anyone and everyone that's not even in the industry!! But apart from those few stalls, we enjoyed the beauty show and got what we went for

 

[nicolao4]

As a mobile beauty therapist and not a nail tech or spray tanner i do find most of the stands are not aimed at my business. I do enjoy looking around but as the other post says there are far too many stands doing the same thing and not enough variety. Think i might give it a miss next year and go to the Beauty UK at Birmingham instead, i think the FHT do theirs at the same time so you can use the ticket for both.

 

[Catherine S]

Thanks everyone for your opinions. That's a good point, Lauren; I didn't think of that (regarding who was allowed tickets in). I know that we were allowed to invite our own customers and issue them VIP tickets but how Professional Beauty went about allocating the rest I don't really know.

I'm not sure what to say on the whole student thing. I know that at our stand, anyway, we sold litre upon litre of professional solution on the Sunday, and not a single bottle on the Monday. To the students we were pushing samples of our new tanning foam and our aerosol tan (and many of them simply paid for an actual spray tan). To try anything else would, if anything, have been a waste of time as most came to the show with only £5 in their pockets anyway it seemed! But if you did see any stands selling them trade stuff, I suppose it's unrealistic to expect them to turn away business because of lack of proof of qualifications or whatever (not saying this is how it should be, just that, realistically, it will be the case).

What we tried to do as well was to encourage people to sign up on our new website so that we could award trade pricing to those that qualified, i.e. professionals. It's too early for us to tell if that's going to work as a strategy for keeping the two business types distinct. It's so difficult because there's always going to be a conflict between trade and retail. We used to focus purely on trade, but our trade customers kept asking for retail products and more brand recognition. So we worked on our retail and branding, but then there's the danger of it going the other way and professional customers feeling like they're losing their exclusivity. In the same way that they so perfectly compliment each other, trade and retail also battle with each other! But I really like your point and whichever show we do decide to go to next, we'll take that on board and maybe emphasise our trade-only offers and pricing a little more. Let people actually know what we are doing.

Nicolao4, what kinds of products were you actually looking for? What services does your business offer? Purely out of interest, I have nothing to sell you

 

[emmajane57]

Thanks everyone for your opinions. That's a good point, Lauren; I didn't think of that (regarding who was allowed tickets in). I know that we were allowed to invite our own customers and issue them VIP tickets but how Professional Beauty went about allocating the rest I don't really know.

I'm not sure what to say on the whole student thing. I know that at our stand, anyway, we sold litre upon litre of professional solution on the Sunday, and not a single bottle on the Monday. To the students we were pushing samples of our new tanning foam and our aerosol tan (and many of them simply paid for an actual spray tan). To try anything else would, if anything, have been a waste of time as most came to the show with only £5 in their pockets anyway it seemed! But if you did see any stands selling them trade stuff, I suppose it's unrealistic to expect them to turn away business because of lack of proof of qualifications or whatever (not saying this is how it should be, just that, realistically, it will be the case).

What we tried to do as well was to encourage people to sign up on our new website so that we could award trade pricing to those that qualified, i.e. professionals. It's too early for us to tell if that's going to work as a strategy for keeping the two business types distinct. It's so difficult because there's always going to be a conflict between trade and retail. We used to focus purely on trade, but our trade customers kept asking for retail products and more brand recognition. So we worked on our retail and branding, but then there's the danger of it going the other way and professional customers feeling like they're losing their exclusivity. In the same way that they so perfectly compliment each other, trade and retail also battle with each other! But I really like your point and whichever show we do decide to go to next, we'll take that on board and maybe emphasise our trade-only offers and pricing a little more. Let people actually know what we are doing.

Nicolao4, what kinds of products were you actually looking for? What services does your business offer? Purely out of interest, I have nothing to sell you

I loved the show, I actually got butterflies when I walked in, but I was specifically looking for a new spray tan supplier so it was great for me. I also wanted retail products and their wasn't much really apart from spray tan retail. I am now trawling the internet for cute bath and body products to sell to my clients. I also bought some waxing products and nail polish from cetuem. Really helpful and friendly stand can't compliment them enough and the products are beautiful. I had a lovely day, but was knackered. I am mobile as well so it is nice to spend time with other professionals.