time to start my blog…..
a rant that has built up over 35 years in the hairdressing industry about hair care companies that make consumer home use products and professional salon only products.
The ones that spring to mind are L’Oreal Schwarzkopf Wella,
I have been a hairdresser for 35 years in
that time I have worked with most of the company’s products that have been
available to professional only,
For me it all started in 1978 and Wella`s
System Professional, as a young hairdresser I loved the way this was systemized and chemicalised
for me if was like playing with a chemistry set, it made you feel like a
professional.
It was of course a marketing pitch, the
products performed just fine the shampoos where not harsh, the fragrances where
lavish and quite different from what was available from super markets, I guess thats
because it was much different than what my mother used to stock our bathroom at
home in the late 70`s.
I then moved up in jobs and joined a Redken
Salon, now the way redken approached salon only products was much more
scientific than Wella`s SP they even had microscopes to analyze hair.
I remember mixing amino pon shampoo in huge
drums from concentrate, one red and one green, I loved this redken philosophy
great shampoo perfectly balanced to the hair and skins acid mantle, beautiful
smells, it looked worked and felt like a quality product, then for 25 or 35
years not much changed the product remained as great to use in the salon after
all the composition of human hair did not change in 25 years if it performed so
well in the beginning it would perform the same 25 years later, so why change
it?
Then I moved to another salon chain they
had around 20 salons and in my early days I would be posted to different
branches to offer holiday relief or if they where short of staff, now some of
these other salons carried different lines for other hair care companies, One
such being L’Oreal Kerstase I got the chance to play with this stuff, which if
I remember correctly I felt it was very similar to Wella`s SP, I preferred
redken at this time. I was either brain washed or I really did see the
difference.
I do remember being told at seminars,
reading in salon magazine articles, and just a general buzz word that “retail
was the place to be” if your salon did
not look like a drug store from the front window you where not hip, trendy,
down with the kids or even professional. or at least that was how it felt to
me.
as time past a few more years went by and I
had chance to work with the LaMaur range, Goldwell , Schwarzkopf, KMS, Still nothing could draw me away from my
affection of redken, and my ability to produce great quality work walking out
the door, and quickly built a following to be constantly in demand.
All the while you would have reps telling
you retailing was the holy grail, and how the profit from retailing shampoo and
hair care products could easily pay your rent on your salon per year.
So When I got my first salon what product
line do you think I carried?
You guessed it Redken, back in those days
it was distributed by a independent wholesaler who you trusted to keep it salon
only, you never had clients telling you “I can get that from my friend for a
fraction of the price your selling it at” like they do today, but then this was
many years before the advent of eBay.
Probably
the equivalent of the day would have been the Exchange and Mart a news paper available from news agent shops
on Thursdays it sold every thing from houses to dogs, holidays cars and
bankrupt salon job lots.
Redken then you could trust you could
customize conditioning formulas mixing the various products. It just performed
year after year, it was as important a tool as your scissors brushes and combs.
Your clients would come in a say “I just
cant get my hair how you do it”
to witch the response would be “well you
need to use what we use”
and very often they did.
We sold a bit, some lines moved quicker
than others, and now a days I wonder if the whole salon world and all the
different product lines from different manufacturers, it was exactly the same,
you sold a bit but you would still have lines collecting dust, but the
manufacturer would only sell you the jewels of there range if you took the
others, they would have an intro pack for example minimum starter order is £300
in 1984 that was a lot.
you would be left with at least half of
that value left on the shelves for several months if not years.
That brings me to when back in 2006 we
carried Paul Mitchel products for a few years, it was not bad the range had
some jewels some really good sellers, but others would not move at all, one
year we had some of the products in tubes I think some conditioners and some
gels well we had them on the shelves so long the packaging dried up and cracked
open spilling the product, now we face north so this was not direct sun damage,
what ever reason it happened and I expected good customer service from Paul
Mitchel UK i.e Salon Success, it was no
more than 4 or 6 different tubes over a period of 6 months, well as I had spent
thousands of pounds with this company over past
years , I though they would look after me, do you know they flatly
refused to replace or refund the damaged products. needless to say I severed
all ties with that company and never used Paul Mitchel again.
What im getting at is I think it’s a myth what
product companies have been telling us for years about retailing being the lifeblood
of your business.
how many man hours have you spent sitting
in front of sales people for them to motivate you in to buying there latest lines?
How much time have you spent talking to
your clients about a particular product you have used, for them not to
purchase?
Do you think you could have used all those
man hours to invest in new cutting ideas, or business strategy’s to help you put
more money in your till than the measly mark up of 40%.
Do you think any entrepreneur would fall for that, imagine taking this idea to the dragons den tv
show how would your pitch go?
Well we have this fantastic hair shampoo,
that’s what the manufacturer told us,
but we have to buy the whole range and its
going to cost 1000 but we should make 400 at some point, but some of the
products sell like hot cakes the others not so.
oh no its not advertised on tv so the
public wont know about it.
We have to tell the public our selves,
eventually they will buy it and come back to buy more, so in years to come our
sales could double and our profit could double at that point I think all
dragons would be out.
and that’s if your salon staff don’t steal
it, or light fingered clients don’t lift it, did you ever work out what happens
if you should lose one bottle? you will need to sell another 3 just to get back
what you lost.
How much mark up does your product company
give you? if its 40% that seems average, if its more, do you have a high
selling price compared to drugstores?
I just read recently drugstores and food
retailers sell something like ¾ of all hair products. Leaving a poultry figure
sold by salons, If your manufacturer made products for salon and drugstores who
do you think they want to succeed?
Remember the drugstores just pile it high
and sell it cheap,
And another thing do you think in using L’Oreal
WELLA Schwarzkopf in your salon,
do you think they look good? Imagine your client that has just spent 100 in
your salon did not take up your recommended products, being more knowledgeable
than ever on what’s available your client has Google at her finger tips and a
powerful computer to take shopping why should she/he listen to you?
so she trawls the Wal-Mart asda shelves and
sees bottles of L’Oreal, bottles of wella and bottles of Schwarzkopf, she thinks ahh my hairdresser used
that company they must be good, and look they have a BOGOF offer I’ll take it,
half the price of what the salon wanted me to buy and twice as much.
Then there’s the millions of pounds/dollars
they spend on tv and magazine advertising, they have the drugstore/food store
shopper ready and primed to buy why should they listen to you? and the celebrity endorsements, I wonder if
some people would believe Cheryl Cole instead of you? or who ever does L’Oreal
in the USA.
More to come on this subject if you would
like to comment and share your experiences please do
