Is opening a nail salon profitable? You can make $40,000 to $75,000 per year from your nail salon business, but it depends on several factors. Here’s the breakdown.
In the modern age of startup businesses virtually blossoming everywhere around the world, it seems quite logical to think of opening and running your own business.
Even though it seems like a great idea, it is a rather complicated process, and you always need to ask yourself whether your future business will be profitable or in vain. It’s no different with nail salons.
No matter how much you wanted to run your own nail salon, there are numerous things that you need to consider first. Let us give you a quick rundown.
The Basics
In order for any business to be profitable, the person who runs it really needs to learn all the ropes. There are so many different factors that you need to take into consideration to figure out whether your nail salon can be a profitable business.
Each business needs to be based on a good business plan, but before you even start making one, think of how much money you have for investment and whether a nail salon is the right business for you.
What You Need to Learn
No matter how fun the idea of running your own nail salon may seem, at the end of the day you need to make your cash register ring as often as possible if you want to make it profitable.
To make it all happen, there are quite a few things that you need to learn. Keep in mind that you need to give it all some time. There’s no room for impatience or thoughts of getting rich overnight. Your business has to run like a well-oiled machine, smooth and easy.
Financing
Will your nail salon be profitable? Yes, if you dig deep into the financial knowledge. No, it doesn’t sound like much fun, and in most cases, it really isn’t fun, but it’s still something that will keep your business running well.
Learn all there is to know about payment systems, payroll, receipts, invoices, sales projections, and funding, because these will be your bread and butter. If you can’t really deal with it on your own, consider hiring a professional to do it for you.
Administrative Details
If you want to make your nail salon profitable, you will need to get a firm grip on the daily operative and administrative details. Also, you will want to hone your human resources’ skills as close to perfection as possible.
Operative details include knowing how to organize your documents and manage your inventory; having the required license and liability insurance is also something you need to take care of.
You need to find a reputable source for all the store products and supplies, and your customer service needs to be flawless if you want your customers to return.
Taking care of standards is imperative, especially when it comes to staff related matter like hiring and training. Furthermore, it would be good to know about the impact of fired or laid-off employees in regard to workers’ comp and other state regulations. A list of rules and regulations for employees also needs to be established.
Advertising and Marketing
No business can survive without proper investment into marketing and advertising, both offline and online. Without these, your nail salon will not be profitable, period.
The way you promote your business will directly affect not just the number of new customers but also the returning ones. Just don’t try to achieve too many goals with each promotion or campaign. Take your time and reach your goals one by one.
The visual appearance of all your campaigns will directly affect the profitability of your business. Create a strong presence on Facebook and Instagram by carefully targeting your audience.
Also, don’t forget to rely on age-old offline marketing methods, such as handing out flyers and coupons. Giveaways also come in handy at times. Mix and match your promotion techniques to get the best results.
How Much IS ‘Really Profitable’?
Before venturing into owning a nail salon, you should be aware of how much money you can really make. Various factors may affect this, but an average nail salon owner could make anywhere between $40,000 and $75,000 per year.
These numbers may vary according to several factors.
The Location
This is probably the most important and defining factor when determining whether a nail salon will or will not be profitable.
Make sure you open a nail salon that doesn’t have any close rivals. Opening a nail salon near another one that has established customers is a highly tricky prospect.
Also, opening a nail salon in a shopping mall may guarantee higher walk-in traffic at the cost of potentially much higher rent. Whatever you do, always make sure that your customers have a place to park their cars, unless you’re locating your salon in a city where most people don’t drive.
Supplies, Equipment, and Staff
These three may also affect how much money you make. Striking a balance will always result in the most profit.
We strongly suggest investing in quality equipment, because that means you won’t have to keep purchasing salon chairs or nail stations after trying to save money by purchasing cheap ones.
The staff is very important, but you also need to be wise and strike a fine balance, if you wish to keep making money. Hiring a few untrained people to get the ball rolling will help keep expenses down, but this may seem like a bad investment in the long term.
You could also go the other way round by hiring a handful of trained professionals, but the true question here is whether you can afford them.
Conclusion
So is opening a nail salon profitable? Just like with any kind of business, you need a good plan and you need to stick to it, or at least as much as you can.
Sure, you can always use a sprig of luck, but basically it all comes down to you and the way you handle things. There isn’t a magical formula for making your nail salon become profitable. But if you arm yourself with knowledge and patience, you are very likely to succeed.
