Well, I guess I'll be the one to go against the mob mentality here and say 'yes', we are making money with the Lumiere.
I run a 30 unit salon in Colorado Springs, Sun Spot Atlantis. If there are any old timers out there you may remember our submarine themed salon winning salon of the year honors way back in '96.
I've been disconnected with the industry for the past four years working on another project but was suddenly thrown back into the business this season when my partner of 14 years decided we should divide our two stores and go our own ways.
The decision was based in part over our disagreement with the future direction of the company and my desire to bring the Lumiere in as the first step in diversifying into more of a 'Sun Spa' concept with multiple light spectrum services like the Lumiere. My partner strongly disagreed. So now we're finding out who's right I suppose.
We are and always have been an EFT focused company. While we will sell the Lumiere regimes if that's what the customer wants, we try to steer them to our new $99.00 down, $79/mo. VIP membership (our normal tanning membership is $20.00 sign up fee and $15.95/mo with a 2,000 member limit, which he hit on April 25th of this year).
The Lumiere was the first high end service we added to our VIP suite of services to justify that new price point. We have since additional services that are also included at no extra charge in that VIP membership.
So far we have sold 19 VIP memberships this season in our first go around. Fifteen of those are currently active. Response to the Lumiere as far as the results go, have been good. We offer a 100% unconditional money back guarantee if a customer is not satisfied with their results. We've had two customers so far that were not completely satisfied. Interestingly when we offered them their money back or to do another regime at no cost, both choose to do another regime.
The Lumiere is a difficult sale, I'll grant you that, both from a customer standpoint and an employee standpoint, as trying to sell a $500.00
solution to your typical tanning customer ain't easy! A $99 down $79/mo sale seems a lot more inviting to the customer and a lot less intimating to our employees.
Fortunately my GM is a 54 year old woman who is a superb salesperson. My kids have watched and learned a ton from her on how to sell this high end VIP package.
Also, since I instituted a $50/$60/$70/$80/$90/$99 sliding commission scale to our employees for progressive VIP sales (at 6 and over they take the full down payment as commission) they suddenly seem a lot more excited about putting the VIP package in front of prospective customers. That's fine with me, as I want the guaranteed monthly EFT dollars, not the one time hit.
So right now we're bringing in an additional $1,185/mo just off of our 15 VIP members. Our Lumiere costs us $526/mo, so I'm satisfied with our initial results, although we have a ways to go (our goal is 100 VIPS).
The other issue for me is that the Lumiere finally gives me a chance to spin some positive press about my tanning salon and what this machine does for your skin instead of the old "UV is bad for your skin, blah, blah, blah" that the media harps now. Now we have something new to talk about
: Sun Spas and the positive effects of certain light spectrums.
I also believe a big part of our success with the Lumiere so far, aside from the fact that it's producing satisfactory results for our clients is that I have a 2,500 e-mail list of our customers that I write to every two weeks or so during the season.
These e-mails are heavy on the education aspect of our services and light on the sales pitches (although make no mistake, we do pitch). Discussions about Lumiere have taken up a lot of e-mail space this season and in turn has sparked a lot of discussion in the store, which is just what you want.
But my e-mail list is the most valuable, effective marketing that I have...and its free. And in my opinion an educated customer is a customer much more inclined to purchase, if that particular service/ benefit is on his/her screen.
So there you have it. I guess I seem to be the lonely satisfied Lumiere customer out here?
Ric