Buying Office & Trend Direction
Buying Office Assistance and Trend Direction for Spas, Salons, Resorts and Medical Spas
In most spas and salons across the United States, service sales drive the majority of sales. Busy owners and operators are focused on assuring an exceptional guest service experience but spend little time developing a strong retail program to compliment the highly desirable services they perform on an hourly basis. Ordering, reordering, merchandising and remerchandising are secondary to sick calls, late guests, staff issues and more. Small operators often do everything from product procurement, to bookkeeping, to desk duties and sometimes perform services themselves with little help. Creating a fresh look is something that can wait. Often, key items are left unordered while slow selling items are not addressed. Unlike fine wine, many retail items do not get better with age and must be addressed on a timely basis.
In larger environments when more help is available, the management staff tasked with these duties often lacks familiarity with assortment planning, merchandising and staff educational needs to make a line successful. Deciding to add a line is just the first step in the process. Few lines retail in a spa or salon environment without recommendation. Recommendation requires education. Education requires spending time with key staff, making them aware of the line, its features and benefits, and what sets it apart from the others. The employees must understand the line, embrace it and recommend it to guests. That coupled with the response, “I am an artist, not a sales person,” or, “I cannot sell something to a guest right after they are relaxed from a great service,” can be frustrating when retail sales are instrumental to the establishment’s profitability.
At Spa Advisors, Inc. we work to assure your retail success. Creating an assortment and merchandising plan is only the first step. Creating an exciting and interesting environment for guests is next, coupled with a highly-trained staff of expert product recommenders. Choreographed product recommendations help those who may feel uncomfortable recommending products to guests.
After your assortment plan and budgets are prepared, picking products to sell is the easy part. Doing your homework before you begin to select is what is most difficult. So many questions need to be answered to assure you are not over-assorted, under-assorted, priced too high for your market or are looking at items sold at several of your competitors. A competitor carrying a line does not mean it is taboo. It does mean you should assure that if you choose the same line, it is the best choice. So many amazing lines exist which can sell equally as well and can set you apart from the rest. When you do not have the luxury of attending the many markets available to retailers, spas, and salons, it is difficult to determine what will be right.
We can help take your retail sales to the next level. Whether you need an entire store developed or you just want to develop a small category within an existing retail environment, we can be of assistance. Here are a few areas where experts at Spa Advisors, Inc. may be of assistance.
- Retail product assortment assistance in salons and spas
- Retail store development, space planning, and design
- Development of strong marketing campaigns that include retail offerings
- How strong gift card and retail sales are essential to service environments
- Retail collateral development
- Navigating the less-than-effective retail inventory systems used by strong scheduling software companies
- Service menu development with retail sales assortment
- Development of signature and private label assortments within a spa
- Branding assistance in a spa through retail
- Development of signature & logo wear apparel, robes, loungewear, swim, resort wear categories and more
- Developing an Open-To-Buy system utilizing spa industry technology
- How to effectively compete against online retailers
- Store merchandising & visual display
- Increasing inventory turn and stock liquidation plan development
- Vendor recommendations in every category of business operations within a spa truly from A to Z or, from aromatherapy to what Zen means in the spa world.
Our staff can work with you on an hourly, daily or weekly basis. We would love to speak to you in more detail about your project. Let us turn your challenges into opportunities.
