Operating Costs & Revenues

3. Clothing

Clothing also has become another attractive additional profit center for many tanning salons. The salons that seem to do the best with clothing are those that have an attractive staff that likes to wear snappy, upbeat clothing; the kind you’re going to want to sell in your salon.

If you’re planning to introduce a clothing line, you should make a bit of a production about it. Close your salon on a typically slow day, send out personal invitations to all your clients and have some of them model your clothing line—like a mini fashion show.

Activewear sells well in tanning salons because people who tan usually are active, more health-conscious individuals. Swimwear is another particularly appropriate retail sideline. People don’t tan with the intent of keeping it covered up all of the time, and attractive swimwear is a great way to show it off.

Many salons also have found that their peak swimwear season is the winter, when department stores are either out of stock or only have on hand what wouldn’t sell in the normal season. People planning winter vacations to sunny climates may frequent your salon to get a head start on their tans, and if they see attractive swimwear displayed there, they are all the more likely to buy it, since they probably can’t find it anywhere else.