A tanning salon in your locality could be a great business idea. You can make a good living, meet interesting people and have something to leave for your children to inherit. A tanning salon has is all about caring for people and making sure they achieve the purpose for which they are paying you. This is why you need to get everything working just right to increase your profits, chances of survival, and beat your competitors. You need to get everything right from the tanning bed products, to wattage and space. You’ll also need to establish maintenance, repair and cleanliness programs to ensure that your customers keep coming back.
Get Space
You need to first acquire permanent space for your tanning salon. Make sure the space is large enough to contain the number of sunbeds you’re planning to buy. Get the measurements of the beds and the size of the entire place to know how much free space is available for customers to use. Your salon should be situated in a clean and easily accessible area. No matter how clean your salon is people won’t go there if it’s in an undesirable area.
Prepare The Space
The last thing you want is your sunbeds arriving when the salon is far from ready. You’ll need a lot of help from carpenters to electricians to interior designers. Most of these professionals have busy schedules so ensure that you set your timing properly and allow one or two weeks extra for the beds to arrive.
Electrical Requirements
The biggest mistakes many people make when setting up sunbeds is that they think it is just a normal home appliance that can be plugged into just any socket on the wall. Sunbeds are heavy power users. A bed with 40 200 watt lamps consumes 40 amps that equates to 9,600 watts. This means that you’ll need to use a bigger wire to prevent the fuse from blowing. Should you stick with the single phase utility or get a 3 phase? The choice is up to you but one thing is certain, normal single phase is designed for use in small companies and households and this would only be suitable for a couple of beds. If you want to operate more than three sunbeds then, you’ll need to upgrade to 3 phases. This will save you a lot of headache and money.
Make Them Comfortable
Customers need to be very comfortable before you can prove to them that you’re capable of satisfying them. When you combine UV lights with carbon dioxide from the customers and the heat from the sunbeds there’s plenty of heat to eliminate. Get cheap Louvre vents and fit it to your wall or door. You should also fit more vents on the outside to allow cool air to filter in. Air conditioners are good but should be used along with the extraction system. Include a music system in the salon but make sure you have the volume visible so that people can reduce or turn off the music if they’re not comfortable with it.
Make Extras Available
You should have reusable goggles available for free. However, some customers would prefer to make use of the disposable ones. Sell only tanning accelerators that are approved to help boost your profit.
After You Open
The most important thing after you open your shop is regular maintenance and cleanliness. Hire staff that will attend to customers and clean the salon, especially the beds daily or after every use. Make sure your staff understands the directions on the bed labels and change towels and goggles as soon as necessary. Allow multiple credit card payment options, provide first aid in case of accidents, keep customer records for future referencing and don’t wait for customers to complain before you replace dead lamps etc.
Alison Newell works for a top tanning salon in Glasgow called Montana Tan and she knows what it takes to be a success in the industry.
