Expert advice for retailing beauty products in your salon

When it comes to retailing beauty products, the same principles apply as hair products; display them easily and let clients touch, play and smell the products. CEO and founder of Repechage, Lydia Sarfati, offers these tips for making beauty work in your salon.

1. Use your specialised knowledge of skincare to listen to your clients' concerns, to do a thorough skin analysis and recommend an at-home care program. If you are doing this correctly, you are going to provide your clients with fantastic results and they will forever love you, and trust you for it. Your clients choose you rather than a high-street store for your professional opinion, so make sure you share your expertise. 2. If you can, hire a full time retail specialist. I promise you, it will pay off. Your clients will come in, get the right product recommendations and purchase those products. It's a win-win for everyone. Your retail specialist can't be just anyone though; they need to be qualified, well versed in your product line, and above all friendly but tenacious. 3. One very important aspect of salon and spa business which is often overlooked is managing retail inventor correctly. Being sold out of a retail item is a lost opportunity for a business to make money. If you aren't able to provide a client with what they are looking for on the day, then chances are they will find it somewhere else and perhaps write your business off for the future. 4. So when is it time to order new products? I always recommend that for your retail display to be impressive and enticing, you should have six or more of each product you carry. A good rule of thumb is that when you get down to four of that product, place an order for six more. That way your shelves will always be stocked and clients will never have to be told they can't have what they want.