sunshakchattano

Has anyone heard of capitalism??

megatanman

If your operating expenses are high,then your rates will be.If your competition has lower expenses,then they can charge less.How could you expect them to adjust there price so your store can survive?For us,it has been an effective way to keep new salons from emerging and the ones who are trying are slowly dying.They listened to distributors and finance companies tell them how much they could make.Unfortunately we do not live in a socialist type society.

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By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as he*l or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
Adolf Hitler

calsunmil

I opened in an area where mostly hair salons had a tanning bed that they would sell monthly packages for about $30. My prices start at $65.00 per month for base bed. When I opened I did a one time special of $40 to get people to come in. Now I give 15% discount to students. I'm thinking of offering 15% to military and senior citizens. we have a vast/diverse population here, I ran my numbers and our ages are from 16-70, not more in one age group than another, pretty even. Another salon opened in a bordering area and brought in the same beds (only 2 beds though) that we have, meanwhile they had never heard of these beds before, a very young gal with a boyfriend backing her with some money, but they opened a hair/nail/tanning salon. They undercut us by $15 on packages and once in awhile I get some customers that bring this up, however most come back if they even go there to try it out. For one thing they got tired of seeing the girlfriend and boyfriend making out and the girl sitting around with her feet up on the desk. Very professional, eh? I worried in the beginning but I am seeing that if I stick with my prices and occasionally give some discounts and just keep offering the service that I do I really don't lose that much, maybe the teeny boppers....

SteveO

When we decided to get into tanning, we did a survey of the market and found only 82 tanning beds in a metro area of about 150,000 people.

Last spring we purchased a salon that needed serious upgrading. It was located near a college of 15,000 students. During the summer and fall we renovated a new space and bought all new equipment. We opened in December with 8 beds.

I was so busy doing the buildout that I didn't even notice that on the other end of town 2 chain type salons were also under construction. They are about 3 blocks from each other and about 4 miles from me. Each has about 18 beds. I am sure that they didn't know what each other was doing when they did their market research and signed their leases. They opened in December and early January.

For about a week I was beside myself with worry because we were not going to be the "new" salon in town for very long and that the pie would be divided even more. Our newness only lasted a week.

Both salons had big splashy grand openings. One salon gave free tans for 2 days. The other gave free tans for 2 whole weeks and had lines out the door and hour long waits. Our business was down a little bit during this time but we held our position and did not try to match them or beat them. We had confidence that we had the better beds and better experience than a chain. We actually added 2 more beds in January to take care of the demand.

Student discounts: I absolutely hate the concept. When you give a discount to a certain group of people, you alienate other customers. What about the person that just graduated, or other young people that are not currently in school? If we gave a discount to students it would be about 80% of our customer base. Our prices are already forced to be a little lower based on the local demographics.

I think that fair and honest pricing go alot further for customers than alot of gimmicks. If you run a special give it to everyone. This will help build customer loyalty.

UV MAN

No discounts here, customers pay full pop period. I laugh all the way to the bank in busy and slow season. You make more money by charging a higher price - PERIOD.

Try it, you might like it. Dont just be happy with paying your salary.

Just my 2 cents but what the **** do I know.

crzytanner

Im in a small town in Alabama and I offer my unlimited for $25.00 and buddy tans for $40.00, they save $5.00 a person per month. I make quite a bit on money BUT I don't have alot of overhead, we own our own building so that makes all the difference. We put most of our money into the lamps and products. We have older beds on up to newer beds, people really don't care what the bed looks like as long as they are clean and tan your butt. We have two fancy salons here that charge a ton for a month around $50.00, $30.00 with EFT for a year contract. I don't do EFT's because I have one at a gym and it really ticks me off to pay for something I may or may not use, most of the time I don't even bother or have time to use the gym. We have alot of customers that have went to those beds and they say they don't change their lamps often, I have one customer who went for an entire month and still didn't have a base, so you just have to check it out sometimes the cheaper salons are better. Just do the homework.

engfant

I focus on $50 for whatever and work my way up from there. Forget about what they want/need. Even if it's 3 visits. Shoot for $50.

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