Wow great subject!

This is an area of the business I need to work on. I carry far too much retail for my own good. In real figures we are retailing at 19% and I need to get that up to 50% (that's one retail sale for every two clients) On the brighter front, the average retail per customer is $37 and the KPI on retail is $32 so our $ average is great but numbers are down.

I had the time to talk to an owner from a "Price Attack" salon about 2 months ago, retail was the topic, since they really are a retail focused store.

She told me the biggest thing in keeping the retail up was education. And companies that were not providing this regularly, the staff forgot about their products and they just didn't sell. So I guess regular support from the product companies is a must. Another thing she said was samples. More often than not any product sample that was given out resulted in the customer coming back to purchase the product.

I have been sampling styling products a lot lately, and getting feedback from the clients when they return and I haven't kept a track of numbers but it seems that a lot have been purchasing the item they sampled.

As for staff, well like Murray said, I guess it is more about them knowing these are minimum requirements, not goals.

I worked in a salon where staff would tell clients what chemist had cheap shampoo, and would even tell them what colours to buy to do theirs at home...... The second last day before I left, the OWNER told me to STOP selling certain products because I had sold them down to the last one or two and he didn't want to have to buy more........ Yes I only lasted a week at that salon.

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