Get inspired by Vibe and Blushes salons and their early festive planning to encourage sales and bookings
Blushes Hair salon (above and below)
Christmas is a time for joy and all-round festive cheer, but for those in the hairdressing industry, it’s also one of the most profitable times of the year, if they play their cards right. However, securing Christmas success requires careful and early planning first, and these two salons have done just that, read on and get inspired to make your own changes. After all, you still have time!
Salon: Blushes Hair Salon
Location: Kilkenny
Salon manager: Alicia Flynn
As a five-star salon on the high street in Kilkenny City, we are already well underway preparing for the festive season. We have ordered our gift sets which we plan to showcase in our salon window. We are also opening our Christmas appointment book early and our focus is on creating a special client experience in our salon for the festive season and for special nights out.
We are very much aware of the cost-of-living increases and that every customer is now feeling it. As such, we are mindful that consumers want value for money and to feel that if they spend money, it is worth spending and this for us is where the customer salon experience comes in, it’s not just professional, it’s personal. We have always maintained competitive pricing and we will continue to do so.
This Christmas, we have a vision of how we can make our salon a place where our customers feel the service they get from us is unique and not being offered in any other salon. We look at everything to see what we can improve. This includes the small things that are important and often overlooked such as the coffee beans we use and having chilled filtered water. We also plan on offering hot chocolate with all the trimmings during the month of December to add that festive cheer!
By mid-November, we begin decorating and making sure that we really have that Christmas cheer and ambience in the salon! The week of Christmas the entire team likes to dress in festive Christmas jumpers, and we feel it really puts a smile on our customers’ faces!
For our customers in the four weeks run-up to Christmas, we plan on doing price-selected treatments with all blow-dries the week of 27 November. Then we will host a competition for our clients to vote for a person they feel deserves a full hair makeover on the week of 4 December. After that on the week of 11 December, there will be a hamper draw of luxurious hair products where each customer that buys retail or has an appointment can enter. Finally, on the week of 18 December, there will be a hair voucher raffle which each customer that buys retail or has an appointment can enter too!
Salon: Vibe Hair Salon
Location: Carrigaline, Co. Cork
Owner: Hannah Noonan
As we are fast approaching our busiest time of the year, we have already started preparing and getting the salon Christmas-ready. We are taking bookings quite early every year. Doing this usually encourages our clients to make their bookings for the rest or the year. We have been booking our clients for their Christmas appointments since mid-July/early August to ensure all our regular clientele are accommodated.
We have already filled our shelves with Christmas stock in our two salons in Carrigaline and Mallow, Co. Cork. We are also offering payment plans on all styling tools in preparation for the festive season. This has been popular over the years, but I feel people will find it extremely helpful this year with the rising cost of living. We understand that everyone is feeling the effects of rising costs and, with that in mind, we have also introduced a junior stylist price list in the salon where our amazing junior stylists offer services to our clients at a reduced rate.
