parrot head

And we know that is a joke, as is this entire concept of a regulated state. I bet they don't open any 24/7 salons in Ohio. From what I hear that state is "regulated".

tanu01

Highly regulated.

parrot head

One of the partners called me to see if I'd be interested. He sent me the contract and agreement which was about 20 pages long. Afer reading it all, there's no way in he**, that I'm letting them control what I've already built up. One cost I noticed was the cost of the security system and computer system. A cost of $22,000 is average. I just purchased a new computer running with windows 7, and it works great. This computer will not work for them, ya right. The list of expenses goes on a on, so I'll take my chances against whomever decides to do it here in town. They'll never make it with an investment of $200,000-$300,000.

H2OTanning

So regulated that you have to correctly answer "How many squirts of sanitizer spray do you use on the canopy and on the bench of this bed?" and a wrong answer gets you a ding on your inspection! I love Ohio..lol. TanU01, Where in Ohio are you? Marysville, northwest of Columbus here.

Black Sun

From the ibeach website under 'franchise info':

"Open a salon for less than $30k – including the franchise fee"

What a come-on. How misleading to think for less than 30k one can open a salon.

I bet THAT IS the franchise fee. It would take, which does not mention, up to 300k out of pocket expense for build-out

tanning_elite

Stay away, far away. The owner of the iBeach franchise just foreclosed on his home. He is selling in states that don't allow 24 hour unattended tanning. The ones now open in IL and TX are in big trouble, because those states don't allow 24 hour unstaffed salons. This includes WI, NY, NC, CA and FL just to name a few. I had a friend look into an iBeach franchise, they refused to show him the software. At the time he called the first St.Cloud location and the person behind the counter said the software would crash 20 plus times a day. I said to my friend, "the makes sense why they didn't show you the software".

mickie

if there is no liscense professional working how can monitor who is tanning? maybe 15 or younger used someone else's key card. Shouldn't be available for tanning

Shattered Onyx

Foreclosed on his home? How do you know?

GunnerTan

We are a 24 hour salon (not a franchise, we developed our own 24 hour software and access hardware which we also sell to other salons) and here is what I can tell you based on our experiences and what we do.

Firstly, we are staffed normal operating hours. So there is customer interaction.

Every member that has 24 hour access has their credit card on file. So when they swipe their card, we have a computer record of who accessed the store (based on the credit card and member card id) and when. This plus our security system gives us pretty good piece of mind with our customers.

That being said, we leave 2 bottles of each lotion out at night. There is a sign-in form for the purchase of lotion after hours (the honor system has worked for us so far) where the customer will put their name, date, and product purchased; we then charge the lotion to their card in the morning. If lotion is missing in the morning, we look at the camera footage/previous night's store access information. All other merchandise is locked in the office.

As for the cleaning of beds, we ask and advise all 24 hour members to clean each bed before and after use and have found OUR customers are comfortable doing so and are more willing to do it compared to other local salons where the staff member in charge of such a job is rather indifferent to doing so.

Any other questions about 24 hour tanning, I will be more than happy to answer to the best of my ability!

Black Sun

I always felt 24-7 had a place, and was 'thinking out of the box'.

I will say though, a 24-7 near me closed recently, though I am sure it was the business enviroment we are in, and unrelated to the 24-7 concept.

I believe some salons are missing the boat. It reminds me of when ' spray tanning ' came about 7 years ago..every salon owner on the boards felt threatened by it, saying it won't work, it is not a 'real tan'.

Now if you are a salon without it, you are leaving cash on the table. No salon could survive without some form of spray tan offering.

Good luck with yours!