texas2penn

I am considering purchasing an existing salon that has been in business for 11 years. The owner's husband must move for his career and she is selling. My question is, would it be a bad move to change the name of the salon once (if) I purchase it?

fashiontan

I considered it when I purchased my salon 10 years ago from the existing owner. But you'd be surprised at the amount of people who leave the area and come back looking for my salon by name (it was a well run salon before me and continues as such.) I guess you'll have to decided if you want the reputation of the previous owner or not. It saved me alot of money and new advertisements.

jayjay65

Usually it's not a good idea to change the name of a business right after you buy it - especially a succesful one. It's hard to gauge what level of brand identity the business has in the marketplace (especially if you are new to the market). That being said, it seems like the level of brand awareness in the industry is quite low so the typical downside of changing the name too soon might not apply. Also, if the establishment has a poor reputation in the market you would be wise to rename it very quickly and let the public know that it is under new management (or assess whether the perception is SO negative that being in the same location would present an image problem for you.) If so, you may want to consider just buying the equipment and moving it to a new location.

I think you really need to assess how well the operation is currently run (relative to it's competition and secondarily, to what you think you can bring to the table to improve it) and how competitive the market is (currently and in the short-term future - are there new salons opening?). The better the business is run the longer you may want to wait to change the name (the obvious question in the marketplace would be "I really like the so-and-so salon, what are the new owners going to do to make it better?" There may be hesitation on their part because they'd be inclined to think change is bad. Conversely, if the salon has been poorly run the sentiment might be "Thank God they sold the business, hopefully the new owners will make it better.", which should be accompanied with a name change and a 'grand opening' kind of splash.

I'm not saying 'never change the name' I'm saying that if the previous owner ran a good salon and seems to have a pretty good following, don't change much right away and let the customer base get to know you, and you them. Afterwhich, changing the name will have little impact on them and you could still make a marketing splash at that time to celebrate the event. If, however, several new salons will be opening in the near future, a grand opening splash or some other marketing event may be necessary to steal (or hopefully prempt) some of their thunder.

As a side note, you may want to read some of the posts in the 'purchase an existing salon' thread to get some feedback from current owners (JKonturas, Chester, etc.) as to what they would consider paying for an existing salon and their opinions on the value of doing so.

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[ This Message was edited by: jayjay65 on 2004-05-18 14:30 ]

BEACH_BUM

I bought an existing Salon and changed the name immediatly. Reason: The salon was run poorly by owners kids, it was dirty, the lotion lines were terrible "telemarketer" lotions, it had a reputation of changing out the lamps when they burned out, acrylics were cracked or broken and on and on and on. I wanted people to know it was under new ownership, knew how tanning worked as well as carrying good products and making fun promotions part of who we are. It has been very successful for us.