[theislandtan]

Originally Posted by hiii98

so are you suggesting getting one HP unit theislandtan? Or should i just get a few VHR beds? Also i'm still not sure what the advice is about the current standups.

To be up front, we are a new salon owner. We’ve owned other businesses, but never a tanning salon before this one.

With that said…

I don’t doubt my decision to buy the HP in the least. We are a smaller salon in a smaller working class area. We might be able to sell a couple of $35 HP visits, but the bed would sit unused for most part. We have had great success selling $10 member, $15 non-member, and $50 packages to the HP. The $50 was a temporary thing that included a sample lotion, water and 5 visits.

If you have room and power available I’d recommend it. I know you’re getting hammered on how your beds aren’t going to work, but our biggest bed if a 32 lamp with facials. We have one stand up. We are averaging around 75 people a day in the salon and have never had a problem with unacceptable wait times for it.

You will need a way to make the beds different. Talk to John at URI. He posts here, but mainly in the lamp section I think. He was helpful in choosing lamps from my beds that made differences the customer could feel and see. We have 3 levels, and when we purchased the salon all beds had the same lamps in them. The customer really had no reason to upgrade. Now our base beds are the least used.

I know it’s easy to get caught up in the “you need bigger and newer beds” routine, but save your money. We’ll probably buy a nice big bed next year, but that’s after we have a better understanding of the business over the entire year. Everyone harps on how bad JASON is, but turns around and tells you to buy all this expensive equipment.

In my newbie opinion, this is what I think you should do.

• Re-lamp your current beds with different types of lamps. We have velocity’s in our base beds. They are nice lamps that work well with beginners, but take a long time getting someone dark. We have beach suns in our level 2’s. Nice lamps that the tanner can feel a difference in. Level 3 has midday sun reflectors. Personally I think they are awesome. This bed had facials so it’s an easy up sell. Level 2 is easy if you let a tanner lay in it for free. They’ll feel the difference and want it.
• Clean your salon! Make it nice. Do some painting if you need to. Make each room or level a little different. Add some pictures or furniture to the rooms. Above all else, make sure it stays clean. We have a number of clients that come from nearby salons because the carpet and beds are clean. I can’t for the life of me understand why someone won’t clean their salon…
• Price accordingly to your area. I am probably the opposite of what you’ll hear here, but I price what I feel is fair. Charging $35 a visit, $99 monthly packages, or retail on lotions is not a fair price to your customers. Treat them well and give them value and they’ll continue to come back.
• Save your money. Buy a new bed when you have enough cash to pay for it. Don’t take this money out of your savings. Same goes for other items as well. We want a formostar, but we’ll probably wait till next season to buy it.

In short, use what you have for now. We did and it has saved us a bunch of money. Sure, we probably would have brought in more money off bigger equipment, but what would have been the rate of return. The risk is too great now that the season is ending and we’re not sure what the next six months will bring.
On the other hand, if you can come across a nice bed for cheap and you have the cash to pay for it I’d say buy it. My idea of cheap and everyone else’s is probably different. Cheap to me is a bed under $2500. This includes shipping…

You’re going to spend a lot more than you expect the next few months. We did any way. Had we went out and bought a bunch of new beds we’d be hurting now. As it stands, we don’t fear JASON. Worst case we burn through the stores savings, but this is something we accepted when buying a salon that had only been open a couple months. At least you have an idea on what to expect during JASON.

Once again, I’m a new salon owner with little experience in the tanning world. These are my experiences with our salon. Yours may not match. With that said, I have nothing to gain from this either.