Check out this article:

http://spas.about.com/b/2007/11/03/taking-...-of-facials.htm


I don't know why quotas are the bad guys in making clients feel uncomfortable at spas, it seems to me that it is more lack of skilled training and protocols that are the culprit in many cases that have that 'jekell and hyde' syndrome for the client: The service is great, but the walk out to the front desk is in complete contrast.

I worry that the more spa services are commoditized and discounted... and the less that products are recommended out of fear...that the higher the failure rate of spas will grow.

I thought it was good that spas are becoming more mainstream, but will it be at the cost of those spa providers with the best expert advice?

How can a non-discount spa be competitive...or profitable...without retail sales a part of their compensation?

The trouble isn't, as one of the comments stated, with retail...as long as the retail plan makes sense. That includes a process for making retail recommendations that is elegant (it's possible, many of you here on the board have mastered it!) and a retail program that is mandatory, not voluntary. At the end of the article she says everyone will be happier...everyone except the poor owner that is!

Clearly I'm a product vendor and have always been very upfront about the fact that I can't be entirely unbiased. But long before we started PPL Douglas was on the other side of it and if it hadn't been for strong retail sales of high margin products, it would have been rough going indeed.

I don't think anyone would disagree that you can't ignore the service side in favor of retail. They go hand in hand.

In all my spagoing years I've never had an issue with being pressured into buying product. At the cosmetic counters? Oh yeah. And that's exactly where the "non-buying" clients will head to spend their dollars!

Clients are going to buy from someone, let it be you. Just learn how to do it in a way that's professional, respectful and with integrity and that is eminently achievable with permission-based selling. Otherwise you're sending your client off to potentially buy deodorant soap to use on their face.

::stepping off soapbox::

This is one of the most ill-informed articles I think I've ever read regarding spa business. Why everyone is so afraid of spa retailing, something that's incredibly to do well and without any client negativity, is simply mind boggling! It's always easier to condemn a practice as evil when the truth is that the idea of selling simply illuminates a severe inadequacy within those striking at it. Some of our so-called spa experts are completely inept in the art of sales (and their own lackluster financial success is proof enough of that) so making sales an evil art is little more than a noble way of evading responsibility and self-improvement.

Those among us who have been successful at spa product retailing know only too well that you cannot achieve it by pressuring or otherwise discomforting clients into making unwanted purchases. You also can't do it by hoping they speak up and ask you for something. Overwhelmingly spa customers wait for the pro-active suggestions of professional therapists, not step up and ask us to do what we should be doing — helping them learn a better way to care for the skin than Lauder, MK, or Joan Rivers can teach them. And it's the professionally lesser-regarding companies that are making the real sales in cosmetics and skin care! Isn't that OUR job as estheticians? Why should we dig myristates and methicones out of their pores created courtesy of Revlon's advertising and our neglect? What good are we if we're too afraid to speak up and help a person that needs and pays for professional help? Are we licensed therapists or facial laborers?

Reading the article it makes Aqua...something...spa sound as if it's special because they don't require retail sales. Nothing special about them...sounds like most of the spas out there.

Hey, the good thing is that they'll need consulting very soon!

By the way, since I went out to Wild Clover Day Spa and did the retail sales training they've broken their retial sales record!!! So, I guess it would have been better if they didn't require anything that way they would be breaking record lows instead of highs.

Silly spa owners, retail sales are for professionals!


Aleks V.

Aleks LOL you're right it does seem like it's more the norm than something new or special! MOst of the times I've gotten facials I'm disappointed because they never tell me anything about my skin and they don't tell me how I could make it better. And I never say that I'm in the business or I know we'll end up talking business so it's not like they think I already have all my own products around. And I know my skin ain't perfect either so there's got to be something they could suggest.

No matter how I look at it there's no way that retail isn't totally essential to my business surviving. I admit that I should be better about managing that part of operatons but even with not being as good as I could be I couldln't do without it, I don't care how booked we are or how well we do our services. The service side is so expensive to run!

I would be really upset if any of my employees pushed (hate that word) product that wasn't needed, that's not what it's about at all. But if I didn't train them and set standards some of them would chicken out and either not sell anything or like in one case with a former employee, send them to the drugstore to buy Cetaphil! Once we help them learn about asking the client for permission to make suggestions it's so easy. Not everyone buys and that is okay, it means we're doing our job right not just shoving everyone out the door with a bag of stuff they don't need! I didn't like reading the suggestion that by selling products we're somehow maybe unethical, what's that all about.

Douglas: I just love your eloquent letters.
I left a comment there, too.

Ya'll should click through to the article, then on the small "comment" link at the bottom to read DP's post.

There's a great post in the comments from a spa customer now too, as well as from a woman who used to work in Nordstrom's beauty dept. before diving into spa world. Really interesting thread.

I've always understood that clients who purchase retail are more *loyal* clients. That alone should make the retail effort worthwhile. Does anyone know of any research to substantiate this assumption?

ValM