Salon, Beauty
Although beauty and personal care is usually counted as one industry one must remain aware of their utility. While efforts to look beautiful or handsome need not necessarily count as a need, personal care is a necessity. We may do without a winter lotion or an SPF sunscreen but not using toothpaste or bathing soap could put us in an unhygienic state. That is a general, macro perspective.
But if we have to assess the market potential of products and services in a country/region, the aforementioned distinction begins to get blurred. The same SPF sunscreen becomes a necessity for people living in regions where UV exposure from sun rays is high. In regions/countries where people are extra careful about their hygiene requirements, such markets carry a greater appetite for personal care products. For instance, if you consider a colony of dentists, residents there are likely to be more disciplined about their oral care; as much as a necessity.
Unbelievable, but human association with beauty and personal care dates back to 10,000 BCE. Yes, we are not far away from the Pyramids now. Care for hygiene and health was an integral part of ancient Egypt. The use of scented oils and ointments for better skin and preventing body odour were common with men and women there.
Globally, the beauty and personal care is now a 500 billion dollar industry. If you want to have a rough assessment of the beauty and personal care market of a region, you will have to take into consideration the demographic features, lifestyle, culture and tradition, weather conditions, and nature of employment. The interoperability of these factors provides enough hints about the demand for beauty and personal care products and services in a given region.
The UAE, and especially Dubai, has a cosmopolitan tinge to it and with a steadily growing population with high literacy rates and wide awareness of health and hygiene requirements, the demand for beauty and personal care products and services is only likely to see more growth. Improving income levels, the impact of social media, and greater outreach of organized retail including eCommerce will further bolster the market.
Challenges for Retailers in the Beauty and Personal Care Sector
Problems for traditional, offline retailers
While the emergence of eCommerce was a boon for customers and omnichannel retailers, it made things difficult for the traditional, offline retailers. Online marketplace business models came as a big disruption for them. The inventory-light models provide a competitive edge to the online players while the offline players have to bear the heat of real estate investments. Also, online retailers have access to a wider customer base which their brick and mortar counterparts are deprived of as their target market remains confined to the local limits. But in the case of services like salon, spa, massage and therapeutic parlours, etc. offline businesses will always have hegemony and by going digital in the necessary ways, they can have absolute control over the market. Any expert salon & spa industry consultants could hardly deny that.
Domination of Big Brands
Preference for known brands among customers for their beauty and personal care requirements is a well-accepted behaviour and this does not require advocacy from any cosmetics industry consultant or personal care industry consultant or beauty salon consultant. With the presence of dominant brands in the market, retailers often find themselves at the receiving end when it comes to margins and merchandising. In the case of services also, brand endorsements and using branded products work in favour of businesses like salons, spas, and beauty parlours. The advantage with services is that businesses have the opportunity to deliver a superior customer experience alongside building a strong, local brand reputation. The role of a beauty salon consultant only begins here.
Staying Aligned with Customer Expectations
Customers are now more sensitive to working conditions, environmental issues, animal rights, geopolitical relations, side effects of cosmetics, quality of social media and advertising campaigns, statements made by top company officials, etc. Being in the beauty industry consulting, we have been witnessing this trend on the rise. For retailers, they need to keep themselves aware of the developments in the related fields and their impact on customer behaviour. Being associated with brands with poor customer perception may not augur well for their business.
Not Taking Business Professionally
The bottom line is businessmen need to manage their business professionally. Like any other business, beauty and personal care business has its own niceties that affect both an enterprise’s planning and operations. A professional approach helps a business remain sustainable, growth-oriented, and competitive. Even a small beauty salon can take professional help from a competent beauty salon consultant offering salon and spa business consulting services. An experienced and competent beauty salon consultant can provide many meaningful insights.
How YRC can help: a glimpse
YRC offers its domain expertise in retail and eCommerce to help startups and existing businesses establish a robust and competitive beauty and personal care business while keeping in mind the best industry practices and nagging challenges. Highlighted below is a glimpse of what we do through our beauty and personal care market consulting services (sometimes, it is also referred as salon and spa business consulting services) for Dubai and the UAE.
One of the foundations of building a sustainable business is a good market research. The better you comprehend a market, the better are your possibilities of making more effective assessments and decisions in identifying and defining the right target market, choosing the best channel strategy, adopting the right competitive stance for the market, etc. In market research, YRC’s team of beauty industry consultants for Dubai and the UAE are dedicated to bringing forth a comprehensive and meaningful view of the target market with actionable insights for better strategies and planning at later stages.
In business plan development, our business plan experts seek to carve out financial insights, projections, and assessments to help clients fine-tune their financial vision for their business venture. In doing so, our experts cover estimation of the capital and initial investment requirements, operational expenditure, costing, sales turnover, purchase and inventory planning, profitability, ROI and break-even analysis, etc.
Building a unique brand identity is a tough ask in the beauty and personal care sector. And that is mainly due to the product and service homogeneity in the sector. In business model development service, we help clients in building a strong UVP-based business model for their enterprise and in formulating the strategic framework of the value chain and network of internal capabilities.
Irrespective of the size and scale of business, operational excellence ultimately speaks for the business to its customers. That is one of the valid reasons why businesses should be more process-driven and less people-dependent. In salon and spa business consulting services, our SOP consultants will help you identify and define the processes and operations required to run your business as intended. Our team will work closely with your business to establish the operational procedures and define the expected standards of performance and output.
Whether you deal in products or run a service in the beauty and personal care sector, going omnichannel in a strategic way is going to help you connect better with your customer base. If you are a retailer dealing with cosmetic products, appearing on local search engine result pages alone is capable of attracting customers from nearby localities. To realize the importance of this, you will have to aim for expanding your customer base and understand how potential customers could turn up at your store. In salon and spa business consulting services, YRC’s CX experts for personal care and cosmetics market consulting for Dubai and the UAE shall assist you in mapping the customer journey covering the critical digital and physical touchpoints with the ultimate goal of helping you build a strong omnichannel strategy.
We are a boutique retail consulting firm. To know more about our beauty and personal care industry consulting services for Dubai and the UAE or if you have any service-related query for our team of beauty salon consultants, drop us a message and we shall get back to you.