Integrate retail products and marches into your lash business

Starting a business from the ground up can be a daunting task. There are other logistical considerations to consider, such as rent, inventory, processing, recruiting, and so on. Making merchandise should be easy. “Why do I need merch for my business?” you may ask. However, the advantages of creating merchandise for your company extend far beyond the face value of a t-shirt.

As a  business, branding is critical to becoming a recognizable and trustworthy source. You should already have or be actively considering a recognizable logo and possible tagline. Making that into a wearable design can raise awareness in your community and make you a more trustworthy source, whether people are discussing your company or learning about it for the first time.

Use for Employee Uniforms

This is the most obvious argument for wanting your merch.

You want your staff and organization to have a consistent appearance. Customers will only be able to identify and approach your personnel for service if they are dressed in mismatched everyday clothes, regardless of how relaxed and laid-back your work environment is.

You may already have a design in mind that you’d want to use. If not, take the time to sketch out potential letters, graphics, and messaging that reflects your company. If the creative process becomes exhausting, take a breather, reassess, and tweak ideas along the way; this way, you’ll feel prepared before uploading your final design to Gelato or Printify.

So, how does this merchandise relate to the message of your business?

Be True to Yourself

Our company has made its employee uniforms feel distinctive and distinct without being overt.

Everything can be traced back to that one statement of the company that employees wear.

That’s something to consider for your merchandise. How can you interpret your company’s message and goals in many ways? This could help with your merchandise design or your whole business strategy.

Another excellent way to raise brand recognition is to showcase merchandise in-house. If someone comments on your brand’s t-shirt, an employee can direct them to a garment hanging on the wall.

Brand Recognition

When you’ve nailed down your logo and messaging, you can start spreading the word about your brand through merch. And it makes no difference where you are in your company path.

Small businesses of various shapes and sizes exist. You may be new to an audience or location or have a lengthy relationship with them.

Understand Your Audience

Selling classic logo shirts, merchandise celebrating your company’s launch, toddler wear, water bottles, aprons, and even Holiday themed pajamas is a terrific idea.

Why not make these designs available to your consumers on a website that costs you nothing?

Direct family and friends to your shop to purchase merchandise so they may wear it and spread the news. Display it on your company’s social media to let people know what’s available and another method they may support and help develop your company.

It will boost your confidence when you go out into the world to offer merchandise for your company. They’ll be impressed that you took the effort to set up a retail store for your customers. It demonstrates your enthusiasm for your small business and its potential to expand.

Marketing Your Products in a Unique Way

Do you believe your company concept cannot be translated into wearable designs? Even if it does not appear visible, you can still maintain the vibe of your business and a sense of self.

Take Stephanie as an example. Minerva Thirteen is her Etsy site where she sells handmade, modern jewelry. Her style and the mood of her pieces are eclectic, and they all express the type of woman she aspires to be and the type of business she desires to run.

She took innovative ideas that seemed like they would translate from something other than jewelry creation but worked because of the feel of the designs.

Differentiate Yourself

Stephanie has a particularly edgy style and wears tattoos. Through these merch possibilities, she can incorporate aspects of her personality that she would not ordinarily reveal in her jewelry-making business.

Another of her signature designs (the Minerva Thirteen logo) incorporates the jewelry aspect in an exciting way: a tattooed hand with pointed fingernails reaching for a lightning bolt while wearing rings and bracelets.

That’s everything about Stephanie’s personality: her uniqueness, edginess, ingenuity, and punk rock attitude.

Refrain from getting stuck in the assumption that your merchandise must be an identical clone of your brand. Like Stephanie, you may employ graphics that evoke your business’s style and feel while informing people about it.

Take advantage of the opportunity to tell more of your story.

Special Promotional Tool

Whatever industry your small business is in, there is a way to sell it on social media. Depending on the field, it may be more apparent for some small enterprises.

Integrating retail products into your lash business

The beauty industry managed to thrive despite the growth of online shopping in the United States, which led to an increase in eCommerce sales of 15.8 percent in 2017. There are countless examples of beauty firms that are thriving, which, in turn, disproves the assertion that “retail is dead.” Ulta, Sephora, and Lush all reported an increase in sales in 2017. It is beneficial for women to receive product recommendations for their faces, which are among their most prized possessions. The beauty industry needs experts to provide personalized advice to customers based on each individual’s appearance characteristics.

Local salons need to take advantage of the opportunity to make money by selling retail products, which is unfortunate. When you stop and think about it, when beauty professionals offer services like eyelash extensions for their clients, they naturally earn the consumers’ inherent trust. Eyelash extension artists are responsible for making their clients appear stunning. Therefore it makes perfect sense for them to recommend eyelash extension-safe makeup and aftercare products that their clients can instantly take home with them.

The following are some of the advantages that come with carrying retail products in your salon

Earnings: The value of each service is increased when customers leave with merchandise, which leads to a rise in revenue. Regular customers will continue to purchase additional goods from your salon to meet their ongoing requirements, resulting in increased repeat income. If you don’t sell the things your customers desire, they will go elsewhere to get those products, costing you the profit you could have made from selling them in the first place.

Credibility: Lash artists may not think of themselves as salesmen, yet, their ability to make one-of-a-kind recommendations that will add value to clientele helps to strengthen their competence in the sector. To achieve high sales, you must provide value that your customers appreciate. In return, customers will look to the professionals at your salon for more guidance and products that will assist them in achieving the looks they desire.

Referrals: Referrals are a great source of business if your company consistently delivers outstanding customer results. Receiving a compliment on a look produced at your salon might result in a referral for your business, particularly when other people want to appear as excellent as their friends.

Customers who want to keep their fantastic appearance will naturally ask for product recommendations, which makes the sale smooth and beneficial. Offering relevant products to visit becomes a natural part of the visit.

Consider offering customers the opportunity to purchase retail products at your salon. In that case, the following information will provide you with some helpful advice on how to get started in the retail sector and best practices for selling products to your audience.

Only Sell Items That You Have Full Confidence In.

The most critical factor in retail sales! You should only sell things that you have checked out entirely first. Don’t just try everything you sell – learn to know it and how it works. You want to be able to speak persuasively and truthfully about your enjoyment of each item when a client asks you for your personal opinion. In addition, this way, if a customer informs you that they can find a comparable product elsewhere at a lower price or with greater convenience, you will be able to speak with conviction about the reasons why it is ideal for them to buy from you or buy the particular brand that you are selling. Clients and consumers have excellent lie detectors, and they can tell whether or not you are faking it when interacting with them.

Retail Items Determined by Customer Demand

Don’t be afraid to learn by making mistakes! If there is a problem, you should try to fix it. If you’ve noticed that a particular retail product isn’t selling as well as you’d like, try out some different marketing strategies, such as moving the product to a more prominent location on the shelf behind the receptionist, offering a discount of 10–15% on the product, and advertising the heck out of it through email blasts, social media posts, and other channels.

If you are still waiting to see results after trying different solutions for two or three months, be bold and remove it from the shelves or put it on a significant sale with a large discount. You owe it to both yourself and your customers to make a place for the things that move the needle in sales. Items that don’t sell well often become part of a vicious loop in which potential customers search for reviews for the item in question, find that there aren’t enough reviews and then decide against purchasing the item. Please don’t fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy, in which you convince yourself that you have no choice but to continue using a product or service only because you’ve already spent some time or money on it. Put an end to it and begin again.

While you have them, familiarize customers with the products.

What is the most effective approach to selling a product in retail? Enjoy the benefits of becoming a customer and falling in love with it. It is essential to make the most of significant moments throughout each appointment. Always use soothing collagen eye pads during each consultation. If a customer compliments the look of their recently revitalized skin, demonstrate how they may replicate the results in the comfort of their home with the same product.

Address the client’s needs to tailor your recommendations.

All the more reason to focus on client consultations and fine-tune your line of inquiry for each customer! Has your client stated that they need help keeping track of all their different aftercare products? Please provide them with an aftercare package or mesh bag to organize all their supplies in one spot. Have they expressed concern about their lashes becoming tangled over the day? Purchase an extra reusable lash brush for them to carry in their purse.

You should already be asking (especially new clients!) inquiries to determine each client’s lifestyle. Keep your retail in mind as you do this, and you’ll enjoy the added benefit of clients trusting you not just to provide them with the lashes of their dreams but also with the subconscious awareness that you’ve got their back outside of the salon as well.

By only offering things your client requires or that you believe they would enjoy (and avoiding those they do not need), you will appear honest and trustworthy, both proven to boost a customer’s likelihood to purchase.

Create Strong Relationships

Building a strong, long-term rapport with a lash client is a talent that requires practice. Not only is it crucial to keep customers returning for refills, but it also helps them understand that when you recommend things, you have their best interests at heart. You don’t have to be every client’s best friend, but you can be their nice, trustworthy lash professional. Consider the following to aid in the development of long-term client relationships:

• Greet your client by name and with a smile, immediately creating an open and welcoming environment in which trust may be made (outside of only why they are coming to you for services)
• During the initial appointment, be an active listener and ask probing questions to acquire the complete picture.
• Provide music (several selections), audiobooks, massages, and other amenities to turn a simple lash visit into a luxurious escapist experience.
• Provide a comfortable setting (high-quality pillows that support their neck, a blanket, a memory foam top to your lash bed, etc.)
• Walk them through the service steps (it provides them peace of mind and helps them comprehend what will happen next). This is an excellent opportunity to seamlessly integrate relevant retail items into your service, explain what each does, and gradually steer customers toward acquiring the right products without trying to sell them items they don’t need.

Physical presentation

It is a beautiful approach to start easy and instant discussions at your salon if you have a visual cue showing you sell retail products. Rather than daubing several lash growth serums or liquid eyeliner pens haphazardly around a workstation, you should think about creating a retail display that is chic, professional, and well-organized. This will demonstrate to customers that you are serious about the quality of your products and will increase their trust in you.

Try to get one with compartments for free samples so that customers can test the goods and judge the quality for themselves if they like them or not.

Display your products so that customers can touch and feel them.

The best commercials are those that can be viewed in real-time. Allow customers to touch and experience your products. Display a “tester” of each product – remove it from its packing and urge customers to pick it up for a closer look. When your client is ready to buy, replace the tester with a brand-new product in the package to maintain things hygienically.

Adjust your display to match your branding and online aesthetic.

Your lash business should be unified, with each component complementing the others. Is your Instagram account full of sparkling, glossy looks? Add some glittery decor to your shelves. Do you typically share stark, client-centered images on white backgrounds? White shelving and walls are required! You don’t want customers, especially first-timers, to be turned off by your shop space’s discordant décor and design.

Make your retail space comfortable and inviting.

Make sure the area of your studio where you showcase your products is inviting enough for customers to stay and browse. This requires some psychology! Set up a small table near the shelves with alternatives for coffee, tea, water, and even chocolates or candies to create a calm experience while people study your wares. Make the shelves accessible and arrange things within reach so customers can reach in, touch, and take.

Make checking out simple.

Pay attention to the checkout procedure! For a fantastic retail experience, efficiency is essential. How often have you stood in the grocery store checkout line, putting back last-minute things because you’re in a hurry and the computer system is running slower than usual? You’d be amazed how often a lack of time is a primary barrier in purchasing retail things, almost as much as a lack of money. Many clients have only set aside a certain amount of time in their day for this appointment, and every minute that passes means that they will be late for a work meeting, a night out with friends, or their children’s school play.

Ensure that your clients’ checkout experience is flawless!

Sales tips

Instead of entering the industry to become a salesperson, many lash artists enter the field because they enjoy interacting with others and relish the opportunity to demonstrate their skills. The fantastic news for your salon is that it is expected to have items on hand in this day and age.

Beauty clients want to be able to take home products from hair salons and cosmetics studios to preserve or recreate a look. When you have a professional display placed in a prominent area where the customer can see it, the items feel more natural and like a part of the setting. There is no need to use aggressive sales tactics to sell the products.

Instill a sense of urgency

Isn’t it true that we always want what we can’t have? Playing hard to get to generate demand may sound like a cliche, but it’s a cliche that applies to all aspects of life and business – especially product marketing! If possible, avoid storing all of your products in plain sight. Maintain one or two of each item behind the sample items to generate a mild sense of urgency. An excellent technique to persuade clients who are undecided about purchasing anything (but haven’t decided on a firm “no”) is to remind them that if they wait too long, the last ones will be snapped up by someone else.

Include additional goodies with your retail purchases.

Buy one, get one free — it’s an age-old sales strategy that works! Throw in a little additional incentive for clients who are more apprehensive about making a purchase. Consider giving them a complimentary mask, headband, chapstick, or other swag with their first lash shampoo purchase or if they spend $50 on retail items. These bonuses can help sway on-the-fence customers to the buy side of the street.

Don’t fight clients

Remember that every action and word is based on a fact or sentiment. If a client says, they’re on a budget or are hesitant to spend money on a product they have yet to try, respect that. Clients are more likely to shut down if they believe you are not hearing or understanding what they are saying.

If a customer states that they cannot afford anything, the sale does not have to end. Make a concession, such as a one-time discount. If it’s not too expensive, you can offer the product for free with their first purchase if it’s something they need, such as lash shampoo or an item they’ve shown a strong interest in. A willingness to be flexible and work with your customer’s needs will make your retail products fly off the shelves.

Artists can utilize the following sales techniques:

Be a product of the product: To communicate what they are advising to customers confidently, artists should be comfortable with utilizing the items they sell themselves and should use the products they sell themselves. You should provide your employees with the products so that they may test them out and become comfortable with them. Then, for them to continue using them, you could offer a discount to your staff. A customer of an artist may inquire about the things the artist uses in their own life. When this occurs, they are in a position to remove the specific products from the display and make a sale of them.

Be knowledgeable about the product: Because the characteristics of each individual are unique, offering individualized recommendations can assist in closing the deal and excite clients with improved outcomes. Artists are expected to comprehensively understand how all products function, how particular eye shapes or lash conditions might look with those products applied, and how to use those products to produce the desired effect. If you cater a product or service to the specific requirements of an individual, you will have more success selling it.

Instead of being the aggressive salesperson, be the helpful expert: Follow the motto “help, don’t sell” in everything you do. Naturally, you want to profit from the things you sell, but the most effective strategy for doing so is to provide honest advice. When customers visit your salon and feel pressured into making purchases, they may become repelled by the experience and decide never to return. Always put the customer or client’s satisfaction first, especially in how you approach sales.

To boost sales in a non-aggressive manner and at the same time enhance customer retention, it is helpful to sell products in conjunction with an appealing loyalty option. For instance, you may provide customers with points for every dollar they spend on retail products; after they reach a predetermined number of issues, you could give them a fifty percent discount on a service. Access to such a program provides artists with something of value to recommend to customers. After a customer has made a purchase, they will anticipate their subsequent visits with anticipation because they are aware that a treat is on the way.

The more lash artists can go out of their way to assist their customers, the more natural the sale process will feel.

Go above and beyond the salon.

Your salon location does not necessarily need to be the only place where you sell retail items. First-time guests may depart and discover, once they go home, that now that they have magnificent lashes, they require an excellent dome-shaped eye mask when they sleep. There may be some customers whose go-to eyeliner is ready to be phased out of production, knowing they will need to replace it shortly. When you send offers to your clients through email marketing, you remind them of what you offer and that you have the goods available for them when they need them.

The following are some techniques to improve your retail email marketing efforts:

• Send customized discounts that are determined by a customer’s purchase history.
• On the customer’s birthday, give a gift that’s $5 off.
• Each month, put the spotlight on a different product to highlight.

While you generally don’t want to clutter a workstation with dozens of products, it’s essential to let customers know about fantastic beauty tools, especially if you offer that equipment. Combine an in-store display with email marketing targeted to your customers, relevant to their needs, and helpful.

The Bottom Line

Having merch and retail products for your lash business will influence you personally and professionally. When you tell your story, you will feel more authentic. People will be able to connect with you on a more meaningful and profound level. Your brand will be perceived as professional and passionate, and you will be more confident connecting with new clients or customers.