MetroStudio

Hello -

I am in the process of opening a new tanning salon, and have been researching for months. Originally I was going to go with all ergoline starting with the 350 all the way to the 1050.

We have room for 8 beds and 1 standup. We are going with the versa-spa for our spray booth and un-sure about custom spray.

I am in the LA market and am marketing myself as a high-end salon and want to feature 2-3 HP units. The ones I am now looking at are Matrix L28 & L18, Magic 636, King, and Saturn. (is a standup hp proffitable?) And the ergoline 1050.

We have a pretty decent budget and are willing to spend more for the better of the beds. Please give me any advice on these beds, including efficiency, customer appeal, and where to get the best bargain. I am currently speaking to a few different reps and have all the specs and have compared. But it is always nice to hear it from salon owners.

Lastly we are swaying towards KBL beds for our medium to low... thoughts???

sunsally

Too many unknowns still......

How many salons are within a mile of you? 3 miles? What beds and how many do they have?

What is your budget?

What is the rent there (CA can be hard to afford much more OTHER than "high end" beds - might want to avoid the "low/med" beds)

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MetroStudio

Thanks for the reply

Yes we have done extensive research on the salons in a 15 mile radius of us. The 2 in the 3 mile radius don't have high pressure beds and are definitely not high-end salons. Our demographics are great. We are getting a loan at the end of this month and we have a location that we are going back and forth with counter-offers. We do have a layout done for the location already. Electrical and A/C is taken care of , Not sure what modular walls to go with. Euro walls gave us a quote of $24,000!! I have a total of 12 rooms and only want to spend 10-12,000. Any suggestions on modular walls? Also H-P Beds and medium-low mix for 9 rooms?

sunsally

Great that electrical and HP are taken care of! For the mix you are considering, make sure you have at least 600A 3 phase power and 15 tons of HVAC. Best guestimate given the mix you are suggesting.

Hard to do the layout without your bed mix - room sizes might vary. Try to get as much equipment and services in there as you can!

Demographics are "great" - I never know exactly what that means, but hopefully it means you have tanners! Be aware, sometimes your most likely users of tanning are NOT the highest income folks. They tend to be more "educated" and have succumbed to the dermatologist claims that tanning is bad. Also, they don't need to tan to "look" like they went on vacation - they can actually go on vacation!

I'd do at LEAST two HP - one 360, one stand up. Make sure you have a room wired to do a 3rd down the road - laydown. Sell them BOTH as HP -- not "oh, and we have a standup". Have them alternate between one and the other.

If your ethnic skin tones are darker (e.g. hispanic, asian, greek, italian,...), consider a HP/LP mix bed (like the Sportarredo Extasy, Soltron Chill,...). Only if you have a lot of these skin types.

Big VHR - I'd have at least two, plus a 3rd with a GREAT VHR Standup. Suncapsule or maybe the KBL Pure Energy on the standup, big VHR could be UWE S-class or Cayenne, high end Ergo or Soltron, KBL 6800 or 7900, etc

Small VHR or VHR/HO mix - Soltron Hot Peppers, Ergo 400, Future Elixir, Ambition 300, etc. 2 of these. Could put the standup at this level rather than at Big VHR level - depends which one you chose and how it tans

1 base bed - for specials, loss leaders, get them in the door? Not sure if I would add this one or not - an argument to be made either way


1 VersaSpa and 1 "Services" room to do custom spray, teeth whitening, body wraps or any other services down the road you might bring in to add $$ revenue.


For best "deals", look for nearly new (e.g. used). Plenty of very nice stuff available if you can move on it quickly. For example, see my post in Trading Post. We have Matrix HP, UWE Cayennes with less than 100 hours, an S-Class, a Soltron Chill and a Versa Spa just installed in December,.... The failure of someone else can be your advantage to NOT failing by starting out with a substantially smaller equipment cost outlay.

Also, there is a guy on another board selling his walls - he is .25 miles up the street from my salon (closing after a year). Very nice walls, great price. That can be a way to save and then just buy the parts/sections you need to adapt to your layout. But 24K on Eurowalls is pretty standard pricing.

My number is below - call or PM if you want to discuss further!

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tcusa

Make sure you do all your calculations.
Take a count of how many customers would
actually come pay for a tan. Dont just calculate
for one good day, but you have to maintain those
numbers EVERY day.
I wouldnt reccommend starting a salon in LA unless
you are able to pay for it in cash. Just beware, a very
low percentage of new tanning salons survive in LA.
A lot of the top salons are going down as well.

Steve Underhill

Try Structures Walls www.structureswalls.com

Steve Underhill

Email me the address of your salon, I would like to pull your demographic report and take a look at it.