Selling retail products during an appointment
Your clients will almost always have some downtime while at your salon or spa. Whether they’re waiting to get into the chair, waiting to process, or waiting for the next service, they’ll have time to shop.
Since clients may already be in the mindset for self-care, they may be more likely to consider other indulgent items besides the service or services they've already booked.
When the client books with your business, the transaction shouldn’t end there. Let’s look at the step-by-step process of how your staff could convert a simple appointment into a retail customer and a loyal client with great service, attentive upsells, and a seamless checkout experience.
The client will book their requested services at your beauty business’s specific location. With Square Appointments they can book online 24/7 with your free online booking website or with the embedded booking calendar on your existing website. To stay organized and create a better experience, you can send automatic email and text reminders to the client to protect your team’s time from back-and-forth scheduling and to ensure that clients are aware of an upcoming appointment. Additionally, the client can change their appointment if they can’t make it.
Once the client arrives a staff member can greet them in the waiting area to get a sense of what they’re looking for. Details of the client’s booked services and notes about their preferences can be collected and saved to the client’s profile in the free Square CRM, Customer Directory. With this attention to detail for personalized visits, your team can build trust with clients.
After the service your staff or stylists can talk to the client about the different products they recommend. It’s important to remember that this is a time of self-care for your clientele. If done correctly, the client can feel like they’re getting three services within one appointment: their service, tips about at-home care, and product recommendations for how to maintain that care. For example, at a haircut appointment the client can get their hair cut and learn how to manage hair texture and protect their color. A few product recommendations from experts will help ensure that their hair continues to look fresh long after the appointment.
Once the service is complete and the client is ready to pay, a receptionist can type in employee codes to attribute sales to staff members, or your staff member can check out the client directly at the register or with their own on-the-go device. Simply add the products that the client wants to purchase to the appointment booking during the checkout flow for a single transaction.
Square Appointments gives clients the flexibility to pay whichever way works best for them, whether it’s with Cash App, in interest-free payment increments with Afterpay (buy now, pay later), with cash, or with a tap, dip, or swipe for easy credit card payments.
The service doesn’t end there. Stylists and service providers can follow up and send direct text messages to the client through Square Messages, which keeps all client communication in one place, and provide at-home care recommendations or offer to answer any further questions.
Once you’ve found your wholesalers, set up your inventory tracking system, and enabled your team to sell and earn more, you can boost profits by adding retail sales to your beauty business. On average, clients typically add one to two additional items to their service appointment checkouts, which can boost revenue quickly. For many of these businesses, 90% of sales comes from services and 10% comes from retail items, which indicates a significant opportunity to sell more retail items in-store and online.
Businesses that use Square also have access to detailed reports that can show sales trends by service provider, by item sales, and by overall sales summaries to monitor the health of the business. With Square Appointments reports, business owners can also track sales for each staff member. These reports provide business owners with crucial insights on items and services sales and staff performance, which are crucial to gauge holistic business health. This can help any business owner understand which products pair with services best and how stylists and beauty professionals can meet their clients’ needs better.