Fewer appointments: a trend across the industry (UK) or a local issue?

[AlexTheKing]

I’ve seen a couple of posts about price “adjustments” earlier this year. It’s no secret the economy is still in cost of living crisis, to varying degrees. On one hand beauticians have to cope with rising cost of supplies (and sometimes rent) on the other clients may need to choose how much they are willing to spend on beauty.

My partner and her colleagues have mentioned on different occasions that they see a fall (from 5 to 25%) in appointments booked, with some of the customers confirming that they save on beauty related procedures by booking less often than usual.

I wonder if anyone else has seen a similar trend (mostly in the UK and London suburbs)? I understand it could be something to do with the actual business and how things are run, quality of the service etc. However those haven’t changed in case of people that spoke to me about it, as far as I can tell.

 

[Trinity]

Massive drop in frequency and spend, clients trying to stretch appointments as much as possible. I've been keeping an eye on my local salons when out and about, even the NSS are virtually empty. I passed 4 salons one day, of the (roughly) 40 stations available across the 4 only 3 seats were occupied.

 

[RosieR]

Totally agree with you on the current situation. I am Beauty and Nails and have also been struggling to make a decent living. That is without having the extra cost of rent, I am home based thankfully.

If I was renting a space I know I would have closed a couple of years ago in search of alternative work.

Less frequent appointments and a definite change in spending habits. Many unexpected sudden illnesses and too many deaths! That's my situation unfortunately..... Very sad.

 

[cola]

I'm in Australia.
Same thing, regulars try to stretch out from 4 weeks to 6 weeks. New clients have drastically dropped off, and my usual 'would you like to rebook?' hardly anyone says yes, it's all they'll call when they need to. Most are calling back EVENTUALLY but it will be 4-6
months later, or they get someone to buy them a gift certificate. I had 3 people buy gift certificates for the same person two months ago for her birthday after I had seen her once. She hasn't used any of the gift certificates yet.


The last time this happened was the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 or 2008. That took about 18months to settle. This feels like it's going to take a lot longer. The combination of COVID wiping out a couple of years, then it almost recovered, then this crunch happened.

 

[AlexTheKing]

@Trinity @RosieR @cola thanks for sharing your observations, sorry to hear that it looks like tough times are here and none knows for how long.