How to Sell Retail in a Salon

How to Sell Retail in a Salon 2024 – Tips for a Pro

How to sell retail in a salon, it can be hard. But here’s the trick, you’re not selling retail, you’re selling product.

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What’s the secret to how to sell retail in a salon?

Is there a universal formula to selling products in the salon or barbershop?

No. Because every individual is different, their hair and thus their needs are different.

In my beauty school, there were many retail contests. And being my competitive self, I took every contest as a personal challenge, and in my 12 months there, I lost 2 contests at all!

During my first 4 years of working in a corporate salon to a privately owned barbershop, I used these same techniques and regularly sold $800 or more in product retail every month.

None of this is intended to boast of my achievements in product sales at all, but only to humbly present a few techniques to you that helped me at first.

How to Sell Retail in a Salon – 3 Steps

Step 1- Don’t push products

The key is to not push so hard. Act like whether your guest buys your products or not isn’t a problem.

Because in reality, if they don’t buy your product it’s not a big deal. The shop will still run without one retail sale.

No one likes being a target.

If your client feels targeted to spend more money on something they don’t need, they won’t ever buy anything and won’t feel like they can fully trust their stylist without the stylist pushing an agenda to boost their numbers.

Don’t sell your guest a product that they don’t need.

Building the trust of your client is more important than meeting a number for the shop, and will last longer than the retail that’s trying to come off the shop.

Step 2- Educate your guest

Starting to educate your guests about a new retail product means that you start with your own education about the product. Learn about what it was designed for, what kind of texture, its ingredients, and actually use it!

When you use the product you in the salon, or even on yourself! And can even give different application techniques to your guests, if they trust you, and you know the product and teach them to use it properly, your guest is more likely to purchase the item.

After a color treatment tell your guest what kind of product will help them give their color it’s longest life and keep their healthy in the meanwhile. Explain how the product helps them, and why it would be good for their hair.

Color Consultation Questions- How to do a Hair Color Consultation in the Salon

The best recommendation you can give your guests is an honest one. A recommendation given to them by their favorite and most trusted stylist or barber is going to be taken more often when you can honestly show them that the product will help them.

What Makes a Great Salon Experience Better? Educating your Clients!

Step 3- Let your guests decide for themselves

Try the new product on your guest while they’re still in your chair, explaining why you like it and why that particular one works for their hair. I’ve always had good luck when I told them, ‘Try it for a day, and if you love it, come back for it.’ 

But also, if it’s a high ticket item, let them know that it sells pretty quickly and they may need to come back sooner to purchase it if they end up loving the product after their trial day of testing it out.

This leaves the decision up to them and you’ve sent them home with homework but with zero pressure. Nobody likes to be pressured into spending money on something they didn’t intend to buy in the first place. 

They have to pay attention to how the product feels in their hair throughout the day, actively comparing it to the stuff they usually use (even subconsciously, they do this). And the decision is up to them.

This is also a good technique when building your clientele too because people (men especially) will return to the same person if they didn’t feel pressured and feel like they are a target for a sales pitch. 

Please see tips on How to Get Hair Clients Fast

And walk them to the shelf, “Just so you know where it is in case you love it and want to come back for it.”

They have to touch it, feel it and look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the day, remembering their homework, and imagine having the product on their bathroom counter.

How to Sell Retail in a Salon – It’s that simple!

Educate yourself and experiment with the products on yourself and on different textures of hair so that you know for sure what you’re selling your guest. And can even give different application techniques to your guests because, if they trust you, and you know the product, and teach them to use it properly, your guest is more likely to purchase the item.

Let your guests decide for themselves, don’t pressure them.

Building their trust above an agenda is more valuable than the commission you’ll get from that retail sale anyway.

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