By Dean Karageorgiades, All Hair Solutions.
All Hair Solutions is run by hairdressers, employs hairdressers and commits to hairdressers.
For a considerable length of time there has been a trend in professional haircare being sold through unauthorised channels such as supermarkets and pharmacies and this was mainly due to diversion or grey market suppliers, sometimes by the suppliers themselves. These unauthorised outlets discounted the products and affected sales of these products in salons causing loss of income.
Recently, there has been a trend towards retailing professional products through online platforms and this has accelerated exponentially. We have been warning salons about this for years.
Unfortunately for a salon to survive in the current environment, you need every Rand you can earn more than ever. Competing against your own suppliers was never part of your business equation and now you find yourselves in the unexpected position where you are losing out financially and being left with stock on your shelves that you struggle to move.
This has become a win, win, lose situation. Clients win, Suppliers win and Salons lose. Simple as that.
What is regarded as a professional environment?
A professional salon is a business that commits up to 25% retail space versus 75% full offering of hair services space or near enough to not confuse what the business is. A hair salon.
This nullifies blow dry bars and fake salons where product space outweighs services space.
Any products that are sold in any other environment by choice, in our opinion, cannot be deemed a professional product anymore.
The commitment to training on these products and the time taken for said training are key to the profession and therefore, an order-taker on the other side of a computer is not educated enough, nor can they consult effectively to recommend the correct products to the purchaser and besides, "they generally promote the brand of the day which in itself, is not in the customer's best interest."
To add further insult to injury, there is now a trend of huge discounts and deals being offered to the consumer leaving your business compromised even more.
It's grossly unjust that after all the commitment to training and to your supplier, clients buy online, oftentimes, whilst they're sitting in your chair.
Let's be crystal clear here, there are no consumers that have never had a professional product prescribed, purchasing professional products online. The only online customers are salon clients who have been prescribed products.
We, at All Hair Solutions, have a 30 year history of being 100% behind our salons, stylists and the industry at large. We provide education on products, on business solutions and support you in any way that we can so that you, and us, can succeed as a team. We have taken a strong position not to supply any business that is not a salon by the definition above unless we know you to be a
qualified mobile stylist trying to make ends meet.
If your client is buying online, she doesn't get to see you and can be potentially lost due to the fact that they believe you're not serving them well from a product price perspective.
You have the power to stop this practice. Support the businesses that support your business.
Take ownership of your own destiny and flourish!
All Hair Solutions distributes Keune (www.keune.com) and Pivot Point (pivot-point.com)
