Christmas trade up on 2012 for many salons

Despite the best (or worst) efforts of the weather, salons across Britain are reporting a successful Christmas trade. Bree Davie, salon director at Trevor Sorbie Hampstead, London said her salon experienced its most successful day on Saturday 7 December and its most successful week between December 15-21. “This was our third Christmas in Hampstead and it was our most successful December to date with approximately 6% year-on-year growth,” said Bree. On those services proving most popular in the run-up to Christmas, Bree said: “Cut and finish was still the most asked for service accounting for about 60% of takings in services. Colour was approximately 1% down compared to last year- I think this has to do with rise in balyage and colour trends - clients have been moving away from traditional highlights. Our KeraStraight services were up by around 2% and I have also seen a rise in blowdries and hair ups this December.” Whether being bought as gifts or for a bit of self-pampering, retail products also sold well. Said Bree: “Our Retail was 16% of total turnover - this is 3% up on last year. For Hair Essentials in Burgess Hill, Sussex the biggest retail sellers were Christmas gift packs from brands such as Schwarzkopf Professional. Said salon owner, Louise Ashman: “The Christmas sets are good value to the customer; something we found they were looking out for.” Louise took a proactive approach to getting the team behind Christmas sales. “To motivate the sales with the salon team we introduced a game of bingo,” she said. “The stylists each had their own bingo card with certain products and electrical items on and the first person to complete their card won a mystery designer prize!” “It’s been a good Christmas for us even though we only had five full-time stylists compared to seven last year,” said Ronnie Marshall of  Byron Hairdressing, Kirkcaldy, Scotland. “Retail was up 18% with most clients who bought products buying at least two. By the weekend before Christmas we had sold 82 units priced between £32.50 and £53.40.” Continued Ronnie: “In terms of services full head tint and tones was the runaway success in-salon, with a 30% jump on last year. Full head highlights dipped slightly in contrast, but not as much as head tint and tones went up.” Ronnie does not believe the success was down to chance, however. “I’m convinced our success was because we began preparing well in advance for the Christmas rush, so the team were well primed to promote add-on services and retail,” he said. “The salon was rammed this Christmas, exactly the same as last year, with most of us working to capacity for the whole of December,” said  Steven Smart, of Smart:Est 73, Weston-Super-Mare. “But costs are obviously up and that’s had a negative impact on profit as we haven’t increased our prices for three years because of seesaw effect of VAT. We plan to up them in the next few weeks and I don’t believe clients will complain. On a positive note, we’ve seen a 70% rebooking rate for January and February appointments.” “This Christmas turnover for the Westrow group was significantly up on December 2012, which was a great result considering the current economic climate,” said Steve Rowbottom, director, Westow. “Retail went especially well this year, and we saw an upturn on clients spending more on electrical appliances. Ghd outperformed any other retail products, as clients were looking for well-presented Christmas gift sets. As a group we also benefitted from the opening of our eighth salon on Street Lane, North Leeds, which opened the first week of December. This new business enjoyed a tremendous start, with around 90% of clients opting to add on luxury backwash treatments from our service menu, outperforming the rest of the group as a whole in this service. Each of our eight salons achieved over and above our predicted targets for the Christmas period, which we put down to the hard work we have undertaken with marketing, social media and PR strategies during the course of 2013.”