Retail is a great way to increase how much your clients spend and increase your salon’s profit. So we’ve put together a list of our top 14 tips to help you sell more retail and increase your salon sales.
Did you know that on average between 20-25% of hair and beauty salon visits include a retail purchase? That means 70-75% of the time clients are walking out the door of salons without being successfully sold retail.
Retail is a great way to increase how much your clients spend, which will help to increase your salon’s revenue. Not only that, but providing your clients with the right home care will help to ensure they maintain their great results.
So, here are 14 tips to help you sell more retail!
1. Listen to your client’s needs to drive retail sales
In the salon, spa, and clinic, your clients’ needs are key to boosting retail sales. Clients frequently share concerns, ask about new trends, or express interest in products they’ve seen. These conversations are valuable opportunities to recommend retail products that solve their problems or enhance their results. Pay close attention during these moments, as they provide the perfect opening to introduce a product from your retail range.
Be sure to record these client preferences in their Kitomba client card. By reviewing their details before each appointment, you can ensure personalised service and proactively offer retail solutions that match their unique needs, driving sales and client satisfaction.
2. Educate clients on products
When clients visit your salon, spa, or clinic for treatment, they are already committed to improving their skin or hair. Use this opportunity to educate them about the professional products you are using during the service. Explain why you selected specific products and how they contribute to achieving their desired results.
After enjoying the benefits of your services, clients are more likely to be interested in purchasing these products to replicate their results at home. Offering education on the product’s effectiveness is a natural and powerful way to convert satisfied clients into retail buyers, helping them maintain their beauty or wellness routines long after they leave your business.
3. Sell service and retail packages
Not only does bundling your services and products into packages help increase your retail sales, but it’s a great way to offer more value to your clients. Kitomba 1 makes it super easy to create packages for your clients, learn how here. It’s also the perfect way to ensure your clients can maintain the hard work you’ve done between appointments, which will ultimately help them to be happier with the results.
4. Focus on holidays and special events
Having a strategy for retail when it comes to events like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas is a great way to increase salon sales. Offer beautifully presented gift packs or focus on selling products relevant to the occasion.
Not only does this mean your products are getting gifted to other potential customers but your current customers are likely to stock up on their favourite products if they are in a gift pack. This introduces them to products that they may have not tried before that they fall in love with and buy again in the future.
5. Know your stuff
Whenever you are selling anything it is important that you know what you’re talking about. Making sure your staff knows the benefits of products and how they can help their clients is a must. By providing clients with professional advice they are more likely to see the benefits of the product and feel confident enough to buy it in turn increasing your salon sales. Learn more tips about growing your business through our free eBook 100 Ways To Grow.
6. Offer a discount on retail with the purchase of a service
This is such an easy way to entice your clients into trying a new retail product they may love. An easy way to do this is by offering your clients a discount on a product that you have used during their service.
For example, after giving your clients a facial, get them to take a look at how smooth or calm their skin is, and then give them a 10% discount off the facial cream that you used. Since your client has already seen the results this product has on their skin, they are more likely to use the voucher.
7. Gift with purchase
Everyone loves a gift. Gifts are a great alternative to a discount and by making sure you are covering the cost of the gift in the service price, it means that it does not cost the business a thing!
Even if your client does not necessarily love the products, they are still more likely to come back and try a different product the next time they visit. However, if they do love the gifted product you can be sure they will come back and purchase a refill when they run out, resulting in more retail sales.
You can use features like Kitomba’s loyalty programme to help identify customers who have spent a lot of money at the business and deserve a special gift. This way, you can surprise your clients with a gift when they aren’t expecting it, which will stand out.
8. Give your clients samples
Alternatively instead of providing a full-sized product, take a look at your suppliers and see which of their products they sell sample sizes of. This is a great way to keep the “free” gift cost low while still giving clients a taste of the product which hopefully has them coming back to purchase the product in full-size next time in the near future.
Samples are also great for giving clients who are unsure about what product they would like to buy. This way it will increase future salon sales when they buy full size products. By providing them with small samples they can try the product out for themselves and if they are happy with it, commit to purchasing the full size.
9. Bundle retail products together
Bundling retail products together is always a great idea to entice your clients to buy more products because everyone loves a good deal. By putting together similar items such as shampoo, conditioner, and a styling product your clients are guaranteed to use them all.
If they love the product they will still buy the individual products they have tried from the bundle at the normal retail price.
10. Display retail close to where your clients pay
Clients are more likely to consider retail when they’re paying for their appointment, so make it easy by beautifully displaying products near the desk, or on the way between the treatment room and the reception desk.
This brings the products front of mind for both the customer and your staff, so they get reminded to look at them. It also gives your staff an indicator if the client is interested. If a client keeps looking at the retail products while you’re checking them out, take the opportunity to ask the client if they need anything.
11. Don’t push clients to purchase retail
No one likes a pushy salesman and clients can be put off if you try to sell them products without demonstrating the value through educating them first. It’s important to build a relationship and a foundation of trust with your clients; a client that has a relationship with you and therefore trusts your professional advice will be more willing to purchase the retail product you recommend.
12. Let Kitomba do the hard work!
Use the retail upsell button when invoicing a client. This is a great feature to use as it shows you the last five retail products your client purchased. This makes it super easy for you to talk to them about these products, ask them how they found them, see how long ago they purchased them to figure out if it’s time for a refill, and know what ones they want to repurchase.
Additionally, if they have not yet purchased a retail product it shows you the five most popular selling products for you to recommend to them, which will help you to feel confident in your recommendations.
13. Make retail relevant
Tailor your products to your environment! If it’s summer you could recommend more products with SPF in them, whereas winter time might need a more hydrating cream to counteract the harsh cold wind. Or, if a client mentions they are going on holiday, you could recommend travel-size versions of their favourite products so they can still do their at-home routine while they’re away. This is an easy way to increase salon sales.
14. Send personalised messages
Kitomba’s Everyday marketing can automatically keep in touch with your clients to ask them how their recent purchase is going or remind them that they may be about to run out or notify them about any special offers or promotions you might have running.
You can also set these automated messages to send out for specific products, so if certain products have a specific way to use, you can set that up to send automatically to your clients, which improves the overall client experience at your salon, spa or clinic.
We hope you take a few of these tips away and implement them in your business. If you want to learn more, check out our top tips on upselling retail, client messaging, and other ways to elevate your overall client experience in our Client Experience Guide.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on 17 Apr 2018 and was updated in 2025.
Data included in this article has been sourced from Kitomba Benchmark and industry statistics provided by Kitomba Salon and Spa Software that is representative of the hair and beauty industry in New Zealand and Australia.
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