Sunbed salon owners - advice please?

[HJHutch]

Hi

We opened our tanning and beauty salon in October just gone. We've been told by many people (and it seems to be the consensus on here) that January would be pretty dead for the tanning side. However, we're doing fine

It's only been 3 months so we know we're nowhere near as busy as we will be when we're more well known but we'd just like to ask an experienced tanning owner how much more busy you usually get in Spring/Summer than you are in the quiet months. Do you think it's twice as busy or more? We know you can't tell for sure, but just an estimate based on experience would be interesting.

Many thanks!
H

 

[cardell]

Hi. In my shop we don't really have drops or highs were pretty steady (in a good way all year round). As you are new you will be busy because everyone wants to try the new place and clients will expect that for the moment you have the newest and best beds but soon you could find it drops so make sure you change tubes regularly enough and keep on being the place people don't want to leave. Good luck.

 

[beautygeek20]

I agree with Cardell, you are the new place so everyone wants to try you out

We opened our shop in June last year and I do a daily footfall spreadsheet every day so I can see how many people have been in and will be able to compare. We had such a busy summer- sometimes too busy that people couldn't get on the beds. From October things really died down for us and we were panicking loads but Xmas was amazing

We were dreading January as everyone was saying it's usually dead but we have been surprised at how well we have done, especially considering the weather.

My advice, if you haven't already done so, would be to make your own footfall spreadsheet on excel. It's really helped us to notice busy periods. We have the top section set out for the 'date' and then we have different rows for New customers, Existing customers cash, existing customers packages, existing customer- new package, spray tans etc. We just do a tally through the day as and when people come in. Might not work for you but it's helped us to see how many new customers were getting weekly and how many existing customers are still coming back xx

 

[HJHutch]

Thank you. We do indeed keep a daily tally on customer numbers (and the time they visit), spend, etc.

We were told by other salon owners and our suppliers that January usually dies off...just glad it's been proved wrong. Sales are up month on month since we opened (which hopefully means it's not just the 'new place' effect).

Seriously concerned we won't cope when it gets busier, but time will tell.

Thanks again!
x