Raising prices at your spa

Raising prices at your spa

Since it is the new year, most of us have plans for our New Year’s resolutions - visiting the gym, eating less junk food, or being more productive. For beauty businesses however, there are other priorities. Like every year, spa owners check their annual statistics and compare them to those from previous years, looking for areas to improve. The most common issues owners tackle year after year are an unsatisfactory number of sales, low cash inflow and not enough loyal clients.

These issues may be caused by a number of factors - poor marketing strategies, countless expenses or over-discounting. To resolve these matters, there is one effective, yet risky solution - raising your prices! Without proper planning, raising your prices can get you into even more trouble, so do not jump the gun! This should be done gradually - if not, then you may risk losing clients, thus experience a drop in cash inflow. Start by:

Planning

By raising your prices at the spa, you increase your revenue - but how do you do so without losing your clients? First off, create a list of potential services and products you would like to increase prices for - once you are done, select one option to work on and create a new price for it. The purpose of doing so is to more easily monitor an individual product or treatment statistics before and after the price increase.

Educating clients

Did you know that the majority of customers who consider your prices too high are simply uninformed about the work you put into your treatments and the quality of products? Imagine a client being upset that your seaweed wrap is far more expensive than the competition’s, but do they know that you use Dead Sea seaweed wraps, instead of cheaper alternatives? By now, they may be too upset to care, and as a result, they may leave your business. For each item, you plan on raising the price for, make sure customers know enough about it in order to accept the price hike. Make sure to offer product and service descriptions on your social media pages, spa booking page and share their benefits as well. Naturally, if you offer a one of a kind treatment or product, raising the price on it should not ruffle up anyone’s feathers. 

Implementing changes

Before you update your official spa menu, inform clients of your upcoming price increase on the given treatment or product, but do so at least a week ahead of time. Using your Booksy spa management system, track the sales before implementing your new price - chances are clients will rush to your spa in order to make a purchase before the price hike. Once the changes have been made, continue monitoring the individual sales - this way, you can track any dips.

Seeing dips? Nothing to fear!

It is obvious that after a price increase, you will not see a large increase in sales - in fact, you may notice a dip in sales and cash inflow. If these numbers remain below satisfactory for an extended period of time, you may want to consider bringing back the original price. However, when dealing with minimal dips in sales and cash inflow, you have two options - offer discounts to clients or implement service packages. Here is what you can expect to see from both of these solutions.

Discounts

This is by far the most common method for attracting clients to your business, and who does not like a nice offer? If you have noticed significant sales dips after implementing a price increase with little or no sales coming in, use Booksy's Promotions section and start a flash sale. Offer a discount on the service and inform clients by sending a notification via Booksy. Although this method works short term, it is very effective for drawing clients to your business. The downside of this is it may attract customers who are only interested in taking advantage of discounted treatments and products, resulting in less loyal customers.

If you are set on discounting, it is best to do so from time to time - by periodically promoting offers, clients will not get used to constant discount buys, thus reducing the number of bargain-hunting customers. Try doing specials once a month for treatments and products that simply are not selling as well as others. If you notice significant increases in sales while your offer is active, you may want to consider lowering your price.

Service packages

Lowering the price by selling service packages is another great way of making more profit and promoting your services after the price raise. Not only are they bound to attract customers wanting to get a better price, but also by selling your client a few sessions upfront, you're loyalizing them - as they need to return to your business in order to redeem the already paid for sessions.

Even after you have successfully raised your prices at the spa, regular monitoring is of the utmost importance. Regular dips in sales of individual treatments and products are not always caused by your price raise - take slow periods into consideration! And with the right spa solution, everything is under control - raise prices and track your sales with just a click of a button thanks to Booksy! Sign up for your free account today!