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Got a fat account in the bank of unsold retail inventory? Want to cash out that investment without losing your shirt in the deal? Here’s how to gather dollars instead of dust on those overlooked, loitering spa retail products that you want to move!
First, a little perspective. Last year a product client asked me to help evaluate her retail selection so she could decide on reductions to it. “We have too many products!” she exclaimed. “Look, those treatment masques are not selling at all so we need to discontinue them. Our estheticians don’t like that product.” There they were all right, eighteen 2-ounce anti-oxidant products standing ready but ignored on the top shelf of the retail display—the entire original order now 6-months old. Feeling good about her “discovery” and the take-charge way in which she chose to correct the problem, she wanted to slice right through the rest of the products with similar zeal. “Hold on for just a moment”, I requested. “Before we continue along this path let’s try to find out what the problem really is so that we don’t make the same mistake in the future.” Then I presented a few simple questions to the spa owner:
Q: “Do you truly know that the estheticians have rejected that masque?
Have you asked them about it?”
A: “Well, no.”
Q: “What makes you think that they don’t like it then?”
A: “Because we haven’t sold any!”
Q: “Is there any possibility that something else might explain it?”
A: “I guess so but I don’t know what that could be.”
Q: “What do you think is one way that we could find out?”
A: “Ask them?”
Q: “Uh, yes, let’s ask them how they feel about the product.”
 I then brought the two top-selling estheticians to the retail department and took one of the masques down to discuss. “We seem to have a lot of these masques in stock. Do you know much about this product?” I asked. They admitted that they hadn’t thought about it before, that they simply had others that they were more familiar with and could sell easily. Then I asked them if they would like a quick lesson in the use and benefits of the product. Both enthusiastically said that they would. I proceeded to give a 3-minute class on the masque: its silky look and feel, the aromatics, and how skin care customers in that large urban environment we constantly exposed to damaging free-radicals—exactly what the masque is designed to minimize.
I took that product and made it real for those professionals and, because this hadn’t been provided prior, created a tester from one in the stock. Then I created a game plan: to use the masque in treatment on every client that it was suitable for, and then emphasize the importance of anti-oxidant benefits during the session. We moved the masques from the lonely high shelf to the reception/checkout desk where they would be more visible and within immediate reach.
I then directed the spa owner to print a small tent card to place by the products that read “Just Arrived!” “But they didn’t just arrive!” she said in exasperation. “Yes, but who among your customers knows that? To them it’s still a brand new item.” I calmly replied. The masques were sold out in just over a week and, amusingly, reordered! That simple plan did more than recover the spa’s $216.00 wholesale cost of the product—it also delivered another $540.00 in gross profit! See how assumptions about products and sales can add up to an expensive and inaccurate conclusion?
Don’t put them on sale—put them on a pedestal!
Slow-selling products always somehow end up on the sale shelf or in a clearance basket. Such products have clearly been stamped with the “loser” title—banished to the bargain table for sale shoppers and, possibly, as a cheap refill. Dumped together or stacked in an unattractive pile they beg for purchase strictly on the merit of price, not efficacy or intended benefit. Is this the best way for a spa to liquidate old or obsolete stock? Not always. If you have a few Jack-O-lantern candles or Christmas Ornament-shaped soaps after the holidays then the sale tactic may be a worthwhile idea. But your primary treatment products, makeup items, and even year-round products such as aromatherapy candles, neck pillows, and room sprays will sell perfectly well if you help them out a little. They just need a little time in the spotlight.
Tell an appealing story
In my earlier career I worked through a talent agency as a freelance makeup artist. My services were often assigned to Shiseido Cosmetics for which I would conduct makeup demonstrations in department stores that carried their products. The first order of business when I arrived at the counter for my promotion was to ask the department sales manager for their “push list.” The “push list” was a tally of overstocked or poor selling items the store wanted to thin out or eliminate altogether. It was the inventory on that list that I was to concentrate my promotional efforts on. I was perpetually fascinated by the items that were targeted for focused selling: while there was always the indigo nail polish or taxi yellow eye shadow there was also some very practical and basic items that, in my opinion anyway, should have been simple to move. In fact, the list contained many products that were simply not in the present favor of the present sales staff. In other words, those items were virtually ignored. Since my freelance assignments were more dependent upon sales volume than artistic skill I made it a point, and a game, to work with and promote the products found on those lists. And it was absolutely too easy! I’d talk about “my favorite blush color” (push listed), this amazing sienna shadow (also push listed), and lip colors that would compliment anyone’s eyes (yep, on the list). I made the presentations fun, made my customers feel beautiful, and sold on enthusiasm. My appearances sold more cosmetics than anyone else on the circuit so my work remained steady in an otherwise unpredictable market. Whatever you do, don’t try to succeed in retail when a product has been given a “loser” status. Who’s going to believe you?
Try my recipe for lighting a sales fire under a cold product
1. Select the product that you want to promote, then ask yourself the following:
• What’s great about this product? (look, feel, smell, results, price, etc.)
• Who is this product ideal for?
• What would make me want to buy and use it?
• What 3 quick and positive things can I say about it?
2. Make a commitment to sell all of the remaining stock by a specific (and close!) deadline.
3. Relocate the product to a “place of honor”, that is, somewhere prominent and easily accessible—preferably close to the point-of-purchase area.
4. Assemble your sales team and teach them how to promote the product: let everyone sample it, smell it, make up their own story about it, and share the sales goal with them.
5. Create a sales contest: the person that sells the most of this item before the supply is exhausted will receive a special bonus, a free product, a massage—whatever gets them buzzing.
6. Be an example: get out there and show them that you can do it, too!
I once was teaching a retail sales class to a spa team when a male customer came in to purchase a gift certificate for his wife. The employees were assembled in the retail area (spa was closed for services but open for sales) and our poor nervous fellow stumbled into the class. We had been discussing a very good but, somehow, unloved body scrub that the spa had far too much of. Noticing that our visitor was looking a bit embarrassed at having interrupted the class I approached him and announced, “Oh are we glad that you came in! We were just thinking that we needed an outside opinion of a new product that just came in. Would you help us?”
He was, of course, glad to comply, especially considering that it gave him a reason for being in the middle of all those female employees! I told him about the new body scrub we received, and how much we loved it but wanted to try it out on a customer right away. I took his hand, rubbed in the wonderfully scented onto the back of it, and then had him feel his skin after the scrub had been removed. “Wow!” he said, “My wife would love this! Can I get one for her?” Naturally, we accommodated his request! And while the team thought that this was a great “trick” I made it clear that it was no trick at all; a product is often what we present it as, a background for our own excitement and endorsement, a means for entertaining and extending a positive experience to others. In other words, it’s what we make of it. So, make it something good for everyone!
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