Start A Hair Salon - Business Ideas

Updated: September 15th, 2022
Start A Hair Salon

Please note that the data provided in this article are estimates and may vary depending on various factors, and should not be considered as perfect or definitive.

Hair salons offer a wide range of beauty services including hair-cutting, waxing, nail treatment, massages, and complementary care such as aromatherapy.

With the increased demand for high fashion beauty services, starting a hair salon could be a profitable venture.

To start a hair salon, you need a strong business plan and find a niche that attracts a local client base. To succeed, hire knowledgeable and experienced employees, and encourage them to maintain a good customer service culture,

Starting a hair salon requires a great deal of effort, dedication, and most importantly passion.

If you're interested in how to sell hair salon, or selling hair salon online, you can use this page as a guide for everything you'll need to know.

Key Stats

revenue (monthly)
$550K
starting costs
$22.7K
gross margin
13%
avg product price
$65
time to build
240 days
growth
SEO
business model
Brick & Mortar
time investment
Full time

Startup Costs

Min Startup Costs Max Startup Costs

Office Space Expenses

$0

$7,000

Employee & Freelancer Expenses

$151

$352

Website Costs

$223

$7,215

Business Formation Fees

$5,600

$20,400

Equipment & Supply Expenses

$66

$700

Software Expenses

$162

$3,094

Advertising & Marketing Costs

$75

$5,536

Training & Education Expenses

$0

$850

Total Startup Costs

$6,277

$45,147

Successful Businesses

Business URL Rank

Brazilian Blowout

brazilianblowout.com

232,207

L’Oréal Professionnel

lorealprofessionnel.com

266,669

Kérastase

kerastase.com

284,716

Kérastase

hair-salons.kerastase.com

286,515

MioSalon

miosalon.com

300,537

Salon Lofts

salonlofts.com

326,577

Beauty Plus Salon

beautyplussalon.com

367,523

Minerva Beauty

minervabeauty.com

426,014

Hair Code

haircode.com

432,956

Marlo Beauty Supply

marlobeauty.com

495,665

City Spa Norfolk

changesaregood.com

695,674

Pros & Cons

Pros Description

Flexibility

You can put as much time into the business as you'd like. If you like the work and have some initial experience, you can start small and manage all aspects of the business on your own.

Ability to start your business from home

It's not necessary to have a physical storefront or office space to get your business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning!

Meaningful business connections

You never know who you will meet as a hair salon. This could be the start of an incredible business opportunity!

High customer retention rates

Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your product or service becomes indispensable to your customer.

Control of workload

With starting a hair salon, you have the unique ability to choose how little or how much you want to work. You also have the freedom to decide which projects you want to work on, and can turn down the ones that do not interest you.

Gain exposure and experience

This career allows you to gain experience working for multiple different businesses - which will benefit your resume and also keep things interesting for you!

Cons Description

Low margins

The gross margins for your hair salon are typically around 13%, which can make it more challenging to incur new expenses and maintain profitability.

Work can be repetitive

You may find creating the same product over and over repetitive and tiresome. One way of avoiding this is to diversify product lines and revenue streams - this will keep things interesting!

Time commitment

With starting a hair salon, all responsibilities and decisions are in your hands. Although this is not necessarily a negative thing, work life can take over at times. This can place a strain on friends and family and add to the pressure of launching a new business.

Difficult to build trust with your customer

With starting a hair salon, there can be minimal face-to-face interaction, which means it can be a lot more difficult to establish trust with your customers. You'll need to go the extra mile with your customer to grab their attention and business.

Impatient customers

You may offer an engaging user experience for your customer, but customers expect a lot and may be impatient if they aren't pleased with your product or service.

Difficult to scale

With a hair salon, it can be challenging to find ways to scale. Check out this article that discusses scaling your business and the challenges that come with it.

Marketing Ideas

  • 1

    Direct Sales

    Direct sales strategy implies a direct contact between a seller and a consumer without the involvement of any third party. Direct selling is popular in sectors where sellers communicate with their clientele personally. The sales technique occurs at non-store locations which include at home, work, or online.

    For direct selling to succeed, hire a few (or many) salespeople to support the sales conversion process. It's critical that you assign them specific roles and responsibilities to nurture the client and provide excellent support.

    Learn more about direct sales ➜

  • 2

    Word of mouth

    Word of mouth is when a consumers reflects their interest in a company’s product or service in their daily dialogues.

    Therefore, word of mouth advertising is essentially a free advertising triggered by the customers experience.

    According to Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family.

    Therefore, in today’s hyper-connected world, a single recommendation through a word of mouth can have a huge impact to your business.

    Learn more about word of mouth ➜

  • 3

    Partnerships

    A partnership is a formal agreement between two or more entities to oversee business operations and share profits and liabilities.

    Creating strategic partnerships with an existing business can be a huge win for a startup.

    This is considering that a partnership creates a new slate of future options for your startup.

    On the other side, pursuit of partnerships could suck up a ton of time, and bunch of resources, and fail to materialize.

    Therefore, entrepreneurs need to do proper research and evaluate the possibilities of achieving success through partnerships.

    Learn more about partnerships ➜