Want to Quit Giving Away Eye Protection?
This may seem like a bizarre topic for December, but it’s the perfect time to implement a change: “For sanitary reasons, we are no longer providing free community goggles starting in the New Year.” If that doesn’t seem like it will work with your market, read on. I share many ways salons have successfully started selling goggles, improved their bottom line and kept their customers happy and healthy.
When I joined the industry three de- cades ago, every salon operator provided community goggles to their tanners for free. Every single salon. Now, only 30% are sanitizing goggles, and all of this minority also sell disposable eyewear and goggles. How did thousands of salon owners make the Big Switch?
Sabrina Tan owns Healthy Glow Tanning in Chelan, WA and used several ideas from my “Making the Big Switch” article. She put a notice on her salon’s front counter inform- ing tanners that due to insurance and sanitation reasons, there would be no more shared goggles. For one month, she sold the old community goggles for $1, and offered new pairs at a discounted price. Sabrina explained to her salon guests that she didn’t want them getting an infection if her team hadn’t cleaned the goggles perfectly. With each goggle purchase, tanners were offered free snack-sized re-sealable plastic bags and rubber bands, so they could keep them clean in the plastic bags, attached to their lotion bottle. “It turned out most of my guests had been required to show their own eye protec- tion at other salons, so it wasn’t a hassle to them at all,” Sabrina reports.
“If they forget their goggles, we give them a free pair of disposables.”
