Jill, those types of items always help us at our salon to retail more products during the holidays. I often am able to help my guests find just the perfect thing for their last-minute holiday shopping. The travel sizes, gift with purchase, and larger-size products are all wonderful items to offer during this time. We also have special limited-edition makeup items that are extremely popular for the season, as well as holiday gift sets from our favorite manufacturers. I make it a habit to ask everyone how they are doing with their holiday shopping and it is the perfect lead in to recommend something great that could fill that need.

After Christmas has passed, our salon always has a huge sale for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. We are offering 20% to 60% off of everything in the salon. We start calling our clients the day after Christmas to tell them about the sale and post to our salon’s Facebook page. Not only does this help boost our retail sales before the year end, but it allows us to clear our shelves to make room for new items for the next year. We can clearance out products that we have chosen not to carry anymore and bring in newer, exciting items to offer to our guests. We find that this helps us to stay fresh and keep our clients interested to see the new products we have.

The secondary purpose of this is that it allows us to perform our year-end physical count of the inventory much more easily than if we did not. We are not overloaded with retail products to inventory; there is more than enough to keep us busy with the salons back bar supplies. With 14 stylists, two massage therapists, three estheticians, and the two of us nail techs, that is a lot of product to count. This is the time that we take a look at prospective products and determine if there is one or two we want to add or any product lines that we want to expand. It is a great way to end the old year with a bang and start the new one off on the right foot.

— Sandy