How to Organize Your Salon
As a salon owner, you know how important it is to have a business that not only has great services and brings great results to its clients but to have one that’s aesthetically appealing, inviting, and organized. After all, a salon’s visual appeal and atmosphere can make all of the difference between retaining customers or not. It can also play a huge role in the success of your business and your ability to generate more revenue.
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Table of Contents
- What is a Salon Backbar?
- Salon Inventory Management
- How to Organize a Backbar
- How to Manage Your Backbar
- Final Thoughts
Whether you’re just starting out on your journey as a business owner or looking to reorganize or beef up your backbar, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about keeping your backbar and salon in its best condition.
What is a Salon Backbar?
If you’re just starting out, you might wonder what a salon backbar is and its significance or contribution to your salon and revenue. So, what is a salon backbar? The term ‘back bar’ refers to the supplies used to provide services to clientele. These items are not for retail sale but can drum up interest in products that can be sold as retail add-ons. Examples of items that might be a part of your backbar would include your waxes, gloves, spatulas, and other accessories.
In 1991, Solé invented and patented the roll-on waxing system, completely revolutionizing modern waxing. This system took the waxing world by storm and led to the expansion and internationalization of Starpil. Now operating in 65 countries.
The importance of a salon backbar comes down to presenting an organized, attractive display to your clients while they get their services and increasing your salon's profit margins. Monitoring your salon backbar and inventory is key to ensuring your business doesn’t overspend on products, remains profitable, and continually has enough supply for your services (but not too much!). Having an organized, easily accessible backbar also helps accurately monitor your clients’ product preferences and can help you create your service menu.
Back Bar vs. Retail Inventory
Apart from your backbar and service inventory, your salon should also have retail offerings for clients to add as take-homes after their services. These two things can be easily confused; however, your retail inventory is the products you resell to clients. This inventory is vital to provide your clients with convenient ways to get salon-quality products for at-home upkeep or additional skincare, while upselling and up charging for these products can also make up a good bit of your salon’s profits.
When buying stock for your retail offerings, keep your services in mind and what items might pair well with them or what might interest your clients.
For example, if you offer waxing services, add-on pre & post-wax care products, ingrown hair serums, or additional skincare can be attractive to clients looking to keep their results and skin in their best condition. Ensure your retail add-ons are useful for clients and add value to your salon experience.
READ: How to Start a Profitable Waxing Business,Salon Inventory Management
Now that we’ve gone over your salon backbar and retail inventory, let’s talk about managing each of these aspects of your business. It’s vital to keep meticulous track of both supplies of products you use for services and for retail so that you aren’t under or overstocked and to keep your salon pricing and profits on track.
How Inventory Management Impacts ROI
It might not seem like your retail inventory or maintaining your backbar would have a huge impact on your business’s overall success, but that thinking would be misguided. Your business’ ROI, or return on investment, refers to how your business makes or loses money and how to adapt to these expenses to turn consistent profits.
Your backbar and retail inventory play a huge role in calculating and improving your business’ ROI. Ideally, keeping your business successful revolves around keeping supply costs low while keeping service and retail upcharges enough to make comfortable profits without overcharging clients.
Keeping meticulous track of your backbar inventory and your investments in your wax plays a large role in determining your service prices. You’ll need to break down how much your wax costs , how much you use for services, and your experience and expertise in your field to determine costs.
Knowing how much wax you use daily and weekly will simplify this process and point out any glaring issues, such as unnecessary product waste. Maintaining your backbar will streamline this process and make keeping track of investments and costs much easier.
Retail inventory also impacts your business’ return on investment. Keeping this area of your business organized will let you properly stock your retail area while stopping you from overspending on products that aren’t selling. Your retail add-ons can also give you an amazing chance to boost your ROI by upcharging on these items and upselling them after services.
How to Organize a Backbar
As a salon owner, it’s imperative to make your backbar as visually appealing as possible to open dialogues with clients about the products used and open the door for add-on services. Your setup should maximize your space while remaining organized, clean, and free from clutter.
The following are just a few ways to increase your backbar’s appeal to entice client inquiries:
- Organization: Make sure the products you use for your most popular services are visible to your clients as you perform their waxes. Talk to them about what you’re using for their service; this will encourage clients to ask more about these products and open the door to talk about other products in your lineup and the possibility of additional add-on services. Organizing your items in a visually appealing yet functional way is also key to keeping your services running smoothly and efficiently. Make sure your open and most-used items are front and center and easy to access, and ensure items like gloves, spatulas, and more are within arm’s reach.
- Cleanliness: Always keep your salon’s backbar clean and maintained. This goes beyond actual cleaning—always have products facing forward with clearly defined branding and ensure all stock is free from dust. Cleaning your backbar daily and keeping it in pristine condition encourages questions from clients and makes it known that your salon is committed to maintaining a sanitary environment.
- Maintaining Inventory: Balancing your stock to ensure you have enough product for services without having too much is key to the health of your business. Monitor how much is used for an average week and constantly check your inventory to keep proper stock levels maintained.
- Communication: As we mentioned, having a clean and maintained backbar can help open a dialogue between you and your customers. The clearer the communication between you and your clients regarding the products displayed and those used for your services, the more you can pitch add-on services to segway into retail offerings.
- Pricing: The more you organize and maintain your backbar, the better idea you have of the demand for certain products and services. This allows you to adjust your pricing for regular services and possible add-ons.
How to Manage Your Backbar
Managing your backbar goes beyond just organizing things visually—you need to keep track of things on the backend as well! Whether keeping track of your salon’s backbar inventory manually or through an automated inventory system, accurately doing so greatly impacts your business’ success. This also helps set standards for staff at your business and accurately trains employees to measure and record amounts of product used per service.
Managing your backbar is all about streamlining your operations and keeping your reports accurate. A salon inventory management system can help maintain your stock, provide accurate reporting for daily and weekly use, and identify excessive use, waste, loss of product, etc.
This will also give you the most accurate idea of how often to restock items that go into services like gloves, spatulas, wax strips, cleaning supplies, and other essential aspects of your day-to-day operations that can often get overlooked.
It even manages your backbar’s stock and alerts you when to reorder your go-to waxes so you never have to worry about running out—even if using wholesale wax!
Final Thoughts
All in all, your salon backbar serves as not only the backbone of your salon’s operations but also the gateway to upselling services and educating clientele.
It even manages your backbar’s stock and alerts you when to reorder your go-to waxes so you never have to worry about running out—even if using wholesale wax!
Organizing and maintaining your operation is key to opening dialogues about the products you use, why you use them, and other services you use them for that clients might be interested in. It helps keep your business as a whole organized, profits maintained, and allows you to keep easy track of products you use for your services.
Whether managing your backbar or your retail inventory, keeping your business organized will ensure you have enough stock for your services and keep your operation running smoothly. Cleanliness, maintenance, and communication enhances your client experience and keeps them coming back for more.
