Start Your Online Hair Store in 10 Steps

How to set up your online hair store ?

A lot of people have a dream to start their own online hair store. They dream to become the boss of their own hair business and to get a growing number of clients. Happy and loyal clients who return to their shop to buy new hair extensions, closures, and wigs repeatedly.

But having a dream is not enough to make things work, sometimes a dream will even be an obstacle to set up your own business, especially if you keep on dreaming. I learned this from the many emails and WhatsApp messages I received from enthusiastic and ambitious people who like to start their own online hair store but did not know where to start or how to proceed. This post will help you to turn your dream into reality, into your own successful hair business.

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From Dream to your own online hair store, the steps

Start your business in 10 steps

This post will guide you in 10 steps to the day you will open your own online hair store. This can be a web shop selling hair extensions, wigs, hair products or beauty products. You can use this post for every online business that allows you to support your clients in getting the best hair and to feel and look good.
By dividing the whole process in 10 logical steps it is easier to succeed and not to give up. When you finished the previous step, the next step will be a logical follow up. I do not want to make starting a hair business to seem more difficult as it looks like when you have no experience yet. I realize in most cases the start of your online hair store is combined with another job, family and perhaps even a course to improve your skills. You should not lose focus on your current job while your hair business is not up and running yet. You do not want to risk your job for a dream that still has to materialize into a successful Ecommerce business.
The First step is all about your dream; you need to know if the idea of being a shop owner is only a little flirt or a real goal you want to achieve in life. The Second step is about the skill to listen the most important skill if you want to start a business. You need to understand what kind of hair your clients need. In Step Three The Interview with ideal clients will help you to prepare your first interview with people that might become your first clients. You need to be sure you know what your clients exactly are looking for.
In Step Four a brainstorm session will take place, I will allow you to dream again, but this time a dream with instructions. To enable you to digest all the lessons learned up till now. Step Five will be about Your competitors in the hair business, you will be surprised how much you can learn from other offline and online hair stores. Now you know enough for Step Six your Unique Selling Point for a hair business! You need to be different from the rest to be successful. When you are ready for Step Seven you will find the hair, you can start selling. Step Eight is about the best way to sell hair online. How are your clients going to find your shop, and how to make sales? I hope you look forward reaching Step Nine about how much profit you can make selling hair online and how to predict the future. To end with the best step of this post about the start of your online hair shop.

First Step – You have a dream!

¨I’m interested in starting up a business in selling human hair and lace frontals, but I’m stuck on where to start and what to look for. Help please¨

One dream is not enough to start selling hair

Just having a dream about your own hair extensions business is not enough for the decision to start an online business in real life. You do not want your dream to turn into a nightmare, because of bad preparation. If you have plans or ideas to do anything with selling hair, you need to analyze your thoughts and to understand the origin of these thoughts.

Why are you thinking about your own hair extensions business?

If the answer is because you had a bad day at work, or the traffic jam to the office was horrible today, then it is a good idea to relax and to distract your mind by daydreaming about your own wig shop. But the question is if these explanations are a solid ground to start your own hair business? And the answer is, No!

The story is different, if for quite some time, both on good and bad days, you are thinking of starting your own hair business. Opening your business should be nurtured by a desire to help people to succeed to find the best hair extensions, wigs, or other beauty products. Or, for example, when you have seen your best friend earning some extra money out of selling extensions and you like what she is doing too. Hair extensions should be your passion. If hair is your passion, it also will make it easier to work the extra hours. Your clients will notice your enthusiasm, and this helps a lot to sell your hair products with more persuasion. Are these good signs to start your own hair store? The answer is, yes!

Do you got what it takes to start selling hair?

Now please wake up and think well about your dream. Why do you have this kind of dreams? I mentioned it before, you should be certain to know this is not a spurt from a dark day in the office. Take some time and be honest with yourself. It is not only important to be sure you would like to start an online hair business, but you should also be convinced you have all the abilities needed to be your own boss. I refer to the knowledge, the experience, and the personal skills. What skills do you have to learn before you really know everything about doing business, clients, products, bookkeeping and so on? If you can try to free up time to [train yourself before you open your hair store], because once you are in business, the time and money to spent on training will be limited.

You can decide to follow a [course to learn about techniques for hairdressers], marketing and sales. You can also learn by some training on the job, you could offer a local store to work for them some time for free, just to learn some practical things, or you could start step by step with a first hair product offer selling from Facebook or Instagram.

Listen to others

Do not forget to ask your family or friends about their view on your commercial and business talents. It is always good to believe in yourself, but never forget to listen to the advice and feedback from others also.

One of the most important skills needed to start a business, or in life in general, is the talent to listen to others, it is so much easier to sell a product to somebody if this person is looking for it. But sometimes they do not know precisely what they are looking for. And this is not limited to the texture, length, density, or color of the hair extensions. This also includes features like the preferred way to pay for the hair, the most secure delivery provider, complaint handling etc. The next step will help you to improve your skills to listen.

Step Two – The capacity to listen

¨You can’t fake listening. It shows. ¨ Raquel Welch The hardest part of communication is not to tell the other person what you want to say. Most people like to share their point of view on things with as many people as possible. Therefor social media, like Facebook and Instagram, is such a success. The most difficult part is the skill to listen to the speaker. Not only to hear what the other is telling you, but also to understand; to really allow the words and body language of the speaker, to enter your brains. You need to focus on what the other is trying to explain to you.

If you can repeat in your mind what is being said, in your own words, you are sure you did listen well. Train yourself to try to find the main idea of the conversation, you can exercise when watching a television program, but also when you have a chat with your friends. What is this all about, what is the other person trying to tell you?

You must focus on what is being said, rather than allowing yourself to be diverted by your environment or allowing your mind to wander. Do not try to read messages on your iPhone while, pretending, to listen.

To be able to listen well, you should train yourself in this expertise. For example, how to separate the key message, from all the words that supports it. People are no computers, they use in their conversation, many different words and even body language to pass the message to you. They might even modify their arguments on the spot when they notice the other person seems not to agree with them. Make sure you understand what the other is telling you about her thoughts. Consider the feelings of the other person and allow her to finish talking.

When you want to give your response, take your time before you answer. Try to make it a custom to repeat in your own words what the other has said. This helps you to be sure you really understand the meaning of what the other person just told you. Make sure it will be natural, do not make the conversation feel like a job interview.

In your mind, do not start, formulating your own response until the other person is done, this will avoid you might miss critical information given away in the last sentences.

If you listen, keep your mind alert, and advance your listening expertise by asking yourself¨ Is the speaker saying something new I should know about? ¨ During the conversation, keep searching for and screening out worthwhile ideas you can use.

Beware of your posture and facial expression and look the other person in the eyes, without gazing of course. Communication is a game for two, so make sure the speaker feels you take her serious from the moment you said “Hello” to the time you say “Goodbye”!

There is nothing wrong in taking résumés, while listening, in fact it helps you to demonstrate to the talker your interest in what is being told. But avoid starting to make drawings as this is a clear sign you stopped listening.

It is good to practice your listening ability before you have your first interview with a potential client, or a loyal client. You do not want to miss the valuable information the client will share with you, especially as you are preparing to have this conversation with a small number of people who could share with you their opinion about the products and service of your competition and what they are looking when they need hair extensions .

Tip Always note the contact details of the person you had the talk with. Ask her permission to send her a newsletter when you launch your online hair store. Give her your business card for her, so she can reach out to you. Every contact can become a potential client or share her experience with others. It is practically free marketing for your online hair shop!
But how do you organize this gathering of information in a way that helps you to find the answer on your question, when will they start buying hair from me? With the next step I will explain this to you.

Step Three – What do you need to know about selling in your online hair store?

To get an extensive, but also objective picture, you need to talk with enough people. Objective, in the previous sentence, stands for not too much influenced by the opinion of one or two dominant persons about how the potential market of hair extensions looks like. You need to organize interviews; this is a more structured way of obtaining information than just a chat with somebody. It is needed because you like to gather feedback from the potential clients of your online hair store that allows you to compare and to draw a conclusion. The information you are going to get will help you to select what your Unique Selling Point will be, in other words, it will tell you where your competitors fail to make their clients happy. And that is an opportunity for you to attract a client or more!

Tip I recommend face-to-face interviews instead of online surveys. The reason is when you have an online hair business, you need to put a lot of effort in gaining the trust of your visitors. Buying hair on the internet is known for the high numbers of disappointed customers who bought hair and received very bad hair, or no hair at all. When you connect with people, by having this face-to-face interview, you can gain the trust of people who might become your first clients. When they leave a review, the first hurdle in gaining trust for your online hair store has been taken.

Tip It goes without saying, you should ensure you have an awesome hair style the day you meet the people for the interview. Talking hair is always a great topic, to break the ice.

Before you are going to talk with people, you need to prepare yourself by writing down what kind of information you are looking for. What are the most common issues clients face issues in the process of buying hair?
All issues around selling hair extensions and wigs can be clustered in a topic called

• Product; what kind of hair is the client looking for?
• Price; what price is the potential client willing to accept for the hair?
• Place ; where and how will the client find you and get the hair extensions delivered?
• Promotion; how do you communicate about the product to your potential customers

These elements of your hair offer are also known as the four marketing P´s the Marketing Mix. All these elements are linked and influence each other.

The preferred combination of the four P´s or Marketing Mix differs per person or group of individuals. For this, it is very important you know your client, not precisely every individual, but the client that represents your target group. This is called your Ideal Client, or buyer Persona.

Your ideal client will always buy hair from you

Your Ideal Client is a representation of the common characteristics, demographic background, needs, challenges and fears of the group of people that populate your niche on the hair market, it helps you to formulate your marketing messages, so you use the right words. Also, it will support you to find the right media channels you should advertise on or use as your own platforms.

Our all-one hair business package includes a template to create your own hair business Ideal Client, I recommend investing in this package to not only save you money and time, but also to avoid you must invent the wheel again, while a ready-made and well proven template is available.

What do you have to know about hair?

The aim of your interviews with the people in your market, is to get as many answers as possible on how your target group prefers the Marketing Mix. For this you can divide the questions you are going to formulate in four groups, every group should represent one of the P´s.

Product- Hair pieces

There are many different types of hair pieces, like extensions, wigs, frontals, … and different types of quality levels and variations. Think about human hair versus synthetic, origin of the hair donor, texture, production method (hand- or machine weft), and so on. Make sure you put in your interview enough questions about the product.
Tip. This insight will help you in the start of your business, when having enough cash could be a challenge, to limit the money you must invest in stock, while being able to at least have the hair pieces of preference at hand.

Price- Price/quality ratio of hair

Another major issue is the price. As the competition is fierce in this industry, many shops and hair salons use the price to distinguish themselves. Clients also use the price as their main selection criteria, especially online when the price is most often the only element one can compare between different online hair stores. There is always a relation between price and quality. Human hair does justify another price range then synthetic extensions. So, if your client tells you, they always like to pay the lowest price, you also need to get more insight in the type and quality of the extensions they prefer.

Tip There is no hair police, this leave everybody selling hair online free to name and grade the hair they are selling. Everybody can sell any hair as Brazilian Body Wave grade 9A, only the final customer will notice the difference after receiving and installing the hair. Make sure the product description on your online hair store is clear.

Place – How to ship the hair

How does the customer find your online hair store? What is an acceptable time of delivery? Do they want to come to a physical hair shop to buy or do they prefer to have the extensions shipped to their home or work address? All kind of questions you must think about when it comes to place. Ask your potential clients for their preferences.

Promotion – What to tell the market about your hair

This element is Key because it will help you to understand through which media channels, and how, the potential clients would like to be informed about your product offering.

• Are they active on social media and.
• if so which one, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok?
• are they visiting certain events where your client would love to be able to purchase the extensions.
• also how should you wrap your hair extensions; will a brown paper bag be sufficient, or do you need a luxurious and sealed plastic envelope?

Organize the questions of your hair market survey

Take your time to think about the questions of the market survey and try to link the questions and possible answers in advance. As all the four P´s are interlinked, if you decide to go for a low price, the delivery time but also the promotion budget will be influenced.

The next action will be to organize the questions on a piece of paper or on your tablet. The four P´s will be the main categories and you only must distribute the questions over the most relevant ¨P¨ (Product, Price, Promotion or Place)

It is also very helpful to get some insight in the priorities your target group puts between the various choices. You would be surprised the number of people who want everything:

• cheap,
• direct available,
• in all colors and
• with a 100% no question asked return policy,

but they should help you to prioritize their wishes, if not everything is possible at the same time.

To whom are you going to talk hair?

Finally select the people you would like to approach with the questionnaire for your hair market survey. Make sure the group is not too small, you should at least interview 20 people or more to get a representative group of potential clients and thus feedback. Make sure they are not only your friends or relatives, to keep the results as objective as possible. Incase you have doubt about the results, expand the group of participants to see if you will get more similar answers on your questions.

Tip Even if you did not ask them to participate in your hair market survey, tell your friends they are always welcome to buy your hair, or you can organize a hair extensions party for them.

Again, do not forget this interview is also a great excuse to introduce yourself and your ¨open soon¨ Ecommerce business to a new audience. Make sure the people you interview will remember you and why wouldn´t you give them a small gift (with your name and contact details) as appreciation for their time and help. Great chance they might be your first customers!

Step four- from feedback to action

Imagine you just returned from the shopping mall, or the fashion and beauty event and you have 35 questionnaires, filled in thanks to your potential clients. Tired of listening and not speaking too much.

Before you can rest. the best thing to do is to organize the answers. For example, by making groups of the answers you received as feedback on the questions.

• how many people prefer a low price in combination with concessions on the quality?
• does everybody prefer hand weft? Or
• does nobody accept a delivery time of more than two working days if they buy online?

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Depending on the questions you prepared you should be able to get a high, medium, and low score for every question. A score is the number of answers you get. As you grouped your questions per Product, Price, Place and Promotion you will be able to quickly see what kind of preferences your target group has on the four P´s. Congratulation is thanks to the various questions you know can better interpret the preference of your clients!

Dream time again!

Check the overview once more and now it is time to daydream again. Yes, it is allowed to daydream because you are your own boss! This time you can dream of using all the ideas, complaints, suggestions, and preferences of your target group. What do they really like, what upsets them, how much are they willing to pay, and so on? Every now and then make some notes, this will free your mind for new suggestions, but also ensure you will not forget anything that just popped up in your mind.

Realize for example that the complaints of your clients about the existing web shops or salons is very useful information to think on items you can do better. Or you should work on to do better than the other online hair stores. In this phase you should not start to put things into action yet and to try to solve the problems. Remember you are still dreaming, and everything is possible, so only think in potentials. This will generate a lot of ideas that you can write down for every P.

Turn the notes into action

If you finished dreaming, or just want to start to work on all the ideas and suggestions it is time to start in a more productive position. Open your laptop and organize the notes. Now you will have a list for every P of client wishes and your ideas to make these wishes become reality.
Now you can analyze if your solutions will really work and at what price. Do not forget you started this online hair business to make money. Do not fall in the pitfall to think all your competitors make mistakes, price their products too high or sell the wrong hair on purpose. It is good to do some research on them. Now comes the fun part, because you must shop around, perhaps even purchase some extensions and talk a lot with all these people who some time ago started their own hair extensions business also. Visit their hair store online and check the feedback from your potential clients. Make sure you try to get an answer, why they:

operate the way they do,

have that menu structure on their website

use a pop up sign up form for their newsletter (subscribe to learn in time about their special offers)

charge that price or

use a specific courier.

Now you can talk but be sure you never forget to listen. And make notes so you will not forget anything, as these lessons will help you to organize your business in a way your clients will like it.

Step Five the Competitors of your online hair store

Today we are going to shop, not to buy a lot of hair extensions, but to investigate how other web shops, beauty salon and boutiques operate. You already started to get an idea of how the other hair stores operate in the previous step, but now you take a deep dive. Learn from the best and the worst hair stores online!

For this purpose, you can prepare a list with issues you would like to understand, organized again around the four P´s and enrich your questions with the issues and possible solutions you came up with when you did step four. Today you are going to understand why other shops sometimes fail to make their clients happy and how you can benefit from this.

Do not limit your research to online hair stores

Although it is possible you only want to start a hair web shop, it is better not to focus only on similar types of outlets. Sometimes it can be rather inspiring to understand how another type of outlet operates and to adapt their method of operating or commercialization in your outlet. This so-called thinking out-of-the-box allows you to come with original ideas that has not yet been used in a specific type of business.

Create online test checklist

The easiest and quickest way is to start behind your desk and to visit online hair stores and Facebook business pages. Check out:

• how they organized their online hair store
• the type and variation of products they sell
• do they use social share buttons
• how is the onsite search feature working
• do they offer payment options like sizzle or affirm so clients can buy on credit?
• do they show client reviews or testimonials, to gain trust in their hair products
• the price and payment methods and
• do not forget their return policy.

Make a list with your findings and check at least 10 or more websites or pages. Pay attention on the issues raised by your target group and if you have the budget (or if the return policy allows you to return the hair extensions) place an order to purchase some hair.

Try to understand the differences in price, products, distribution method and promotion and if possible, try to call the owner to have a chat. Why are they using specific solutions, what is their motivation for not having a of a return policy, the reason they do not sell specific hair types etc. But beware the shop owner might have reasons to color his answers, so you always need to cross check the answers yourself.

Try to rank the shops in best, medium and not good and compare their performance on the four P´s. This again will help you to select the items you can improve to have a better performance than the existing shops.

Visit some salons to get ideas

A similar method you can use if you do some field research by visiting some hairdresser’s or salons that sell hair extensions. Investigate the way they operate, how the hair is shown and how they interact with their clients. Check their promotion material, do they use flyers, brochures, calendars etc. and how do they connect with their customers?

It´s not enough to know your client, you should also know your competitors as they will be a main source of new clients if you do better than them and you succeed to communicate this to your potential customers. You will only get clients when your Unique Selling Point (UPS) outperforms your competitors. As now you have enough knowledge about your market, we will define your USP in the next chapter.

Tip It is all about the experience. It is important to \keep in mind, your clients do not need strands of hair. They want to look and feel good and part of that feeling you should give them with the perfect shopping experience. Do not make the survey and spying on your competitors as a technical exercise, learn how and where you can improve the shopping experience.

Step Six Define your Unique Selling Point (USP)

As the word Unique implies, your Unique Selling Point stands for anything in your product offering that is unique and helps customers to save time when they want to buy hair extensions, because they already know where to go to (in your online hair store!).
Simply because if you succeed to make clear your hair extensions and wigs are different, better, or cheaper than the rest, you will stand out from the competition and the client will be yours! Make sure your USP can be quickly picked up by your potential customers. For example, by putting your USP in one clear sentence and use it in all your communications with your client.

For example:
¨Give women the ability to maintain a healthy financial life without sacrificing their beauty and personal style¨ or ¨We strive to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations¨.

But how do you identify your Unique Selling Point?

The good thing is, as a start-up hair business, you can choose from the wish list of your target group you prepared on step Four. Start with the hair pieces with the greatest potential, because most people from your target group referred to this type of hair.

The wish list will give you a great overview of all the benefits your clients are looking for when buying hair. Some benefits are more important than the others, for example if your customers prefer a low price but also a broad offering of colors you should be able to rank one benefit as more important than the other. Using the feedback of the interview will help you to prioritize this.

After this you will have a wide-ranging list of benefits your potential clients are looking for and the priorities they consider when they must choose between these benefits. With the lessons learned from your visits to the various online hair shops and hair salons you will be able to consider if these benefits are offered by the competition and at what kind of level of quality or price. This overview will show you which benefits, your target group is looking for or is not serviced or provided by the competitors or provided at an unsatisfactory level.
The last thing to do with this list is to highlight the weak spots of the competitors.

Your challenge and your gain of clients will depend on the fact if you can beat the competitors by offering the benefits they do not offer or at a level below your client’s expectations.

For this you should see if you can beat them on price by buying cheaper from your hair vendor or to work at lower expenses. For example, to work from home.

To have a USP is not enough, the people interested to buy your products need to know your USP also. Make sure you communicate your USP very clear in every interaction with your target clients. A good idea could be to think of a slogan for your hair and beauty company, a one liner that you print on your business card, website, Facebook business page and in the conversations with your clients.

Step seven The Hair! Your Products

If you want to start an online hair store, you are already very much aware of all the aspects and fashion trends of hair extensions and wigs. This step will not be about hair extensions in all the various textures, production, or bonding methods. This will be about how you market your hair extensions as the need of your clients they want to satisfy.

Know your product

We would like to advise you to make sure you know the hair you are going to sell. Fix it, wear it, wash it, lose the weaves, and see how it responds over time. Only then you will be able to advice your clients about the hair. When your client has some complaints, you will be able to analyze more better what might have happened and what might have caused it and the most important lesson, how to solve it!

The products that you are selling, the hair extensions, wigs, and closures, are in fact the need or desire of your client to look good, to look different than on another occasion. If your client is happy with the hair extensions, it is because she feels good! She is less interested in the way the hair is manufactured or shipped from Brazil or India to your shop. So instead of a product you should see the hair extensions as a need-satisfying offer to your client.

As hair extensions are a beauty product, you are not only selling the weft, but also the service of giving advice and sometimes fixing the hair. But you might also deliver supporting material like conditioner or specific soap to maintain the hair. Your clients will ask for it.

Although hair extensions are becoming more and more a convenience product, your clients like to take the time to compare, feel and try the looks. Most people will not buy the hair in an impulse, but only after they are sure the extensions will make them look good. For this it is key to know your client will, before the purchase of the hair, spent a lot of time to compare the offer from other shops, especially if they are buying for the first time. This can be up to seven times! To avoid your clients are only comparing on price, you need to emphasize on your Unique Selling Point.

If you are not selling on price only, it is good to offer something extra, as your client will expect this. More information about the maintenance or the possible hair styles, a 100% money back guarantee or free shipping. The hair extensions can be used in different ways, some people might buy wefts to sew them direct in their hair, others use wefts to cut them in pieces and to attach clip-ins.

So, when thinking of the product your interview with your clients will become of use again. You need to know where your clients want to use the extensions for, are they using them to make clip ins, are they going to dye the hair? It could also help you to suggest some new features they did not know about before, but that could help satisfying their needs in a better manner.

Another important issue is if you sell real human hair, the origin of this hair is a natural donor and therefor it is impossible to reach 100% perfect reproduction of the desired hair. The natural hair extensions may vary in color, length, wave, and availability from a previous shipment.

The price of the product, and availability are issues to consider when selling this in your online hair store. It is very unpleasant if you finally got a customer for some nice real human hair and your supplier just ran out of stock. This risk will not occur in case of synthetic hair, as these are manufactured.

Packaging

The way you present the hair in your online store is also very important, not only to protect the hair extensions when presented to the clients and later when shipped to the final purchaser.

To add some extra value, to communicate to the client your Unique Selling Point. Do not underestimate the importance of the bag you want to put the hair extensions in. That bag is your business card and tells the friend of your client directly where to go to if they want to look as great as their friend with her newly purchased curly extensions. You can also use the packaging to inform your clients this product is new, a new line of hair extensions and be honest who does not like to buy a product that just recently was introduced to the market.

Brand name for your online hair store

If you create a brand name, you help your clients to discover you easier between all these suppliers of hair extensions. And make sure your brand is linked with your Unique Selling Point. If your clients bought your brand before and your product satisfied their needs, they will, without the urge to compare again, buy your brand again. Using a brand name will encourage clients to repeated buying and it will lower your costs as you need to invest less time and money in selling the product to your clients.

How to find a catchy hair brand name

Tip Of course you need to earn that your clients prefer your brand over the others, just to select a name to your products will not be enough. So, invest in, again, your Unique Selling Point.

Step eight Location, location, location, also online

Even if you have the best product, in quality and in price, but when nobody knows about it, not one person will buy.

Although in the age of Internet and courier services the location seems to be less of importance, it remains an essential factor. Not in the least as the clients should be able to meet you and find your shop on the internet.

Find a hair store thanks to referrals

People use more and more different strategies to find the hair and beauty products they need. Google, nut more and more YouTube, the yellow pages, visiting a shopping mall etc. To find a shop selling hair extensions near you is not that difficult. When you use Google, you will find thousands of online hair stores in a matter of less than a second. But people want to be sure the shop is trustworthy, so the most important source for people remains referrals. If you are in need for good quality hair you talk about it, and this can be in real life or through social media. And then your friends or contacts will suggest you, based upon their experience a place to buy the products.

Your clients will tell others about your hair brand

You should put a lot of effort to have your shop been found by potential clients. And even then, just to be seen on the internet is not enough, people should also have a good feeling. So, more important than a good location, is a good relationship with every visitor that succeeded to enter your shop. Regardless of if this visitor will purchase hair extensions, they have your shop, your brand and your USP in the back of their mind when they leave your shop. They are your ambassadors, so even if they do not buy anything today, respect them and remember good chance they might come back!

How to be found online

When you design your online hair store, you need to think of how your ideal client will find you online. This means,

• write appealing product descriptions, use the right keywords your Ideal clients use when searching for the hair
• create a menu structure to allow the search engines and your clients to find what they are looking for in the most efficient way
• think of technical SEO, this is the right structure of the text you use, alt text for the images, using filenames that explain the content of the image
• use your social media to promote your web store
• share your expertise in a blog post, use enough words and images to tell the story
• design a website that loads fast, so users on mobile will enjoy landing and visiting your web store.
• visit your web store regularly to see for broken links, the call to actions you placed and the message your visitors will see the first time they land on a page.

Online hair store but also offline

If you sell hair online, you have the choice to offer your clients a pickup service or to ship the hair extensions. Take your time to select and compare the various post and courier services. It is not only the price of the shipment that matters, but also the information they provide to track your shipment and the reliability of the communicated time of arrival of your parcels. If the mail has a delay, big chance the client will blame you for that, although this is of course completely out of your control. An appreciated service is to share the tracking information with your client, this will reassure them the shipment they paid for is on its way.

Now you know

• what your clients want
• what you are going to do better than the competition,
• how you will promote the product
• how you will wrap it and
• how people will find your online hair store

Everything in line with your Unique Selling Point . But before you can open your shop or salon you need to sit behind your desk again. It is time for some mysterious work, you are going to predict the future!

Step nine – Time to predict the future

Do not forget the bookkeeping

First, you should do what you are good at and that is selling hair extensions. But you are also responsible for your bookkeeping and tax return, so you need to invest some time to study about these topics. You can, if the money allows it, hire a bookkeeper for the operational side of accounting and the tax return, but you should be able to understand at last the basic rules. You should know your figures to avoid surprises. These rules differ per country, so check with your local chamber of commerce.

Think one step ahead selling hair

Next to this, you should be able to start developing something that predicts the future. If you foresee an increase in potential clients soon, or even better if you know the hair products potential buyers are interested in you can anticipate. You will be able to influence this potential buyer by special actions, coupons or anything that might influence their purchasing behavior.
And you can adapt your plans to buy certain type of hair and avoid too much stock of hair extensions that perhaps will not be bought for a long time.

Use your Store Data

How to make this work? As mentioned before, in general, people review a product or visit a store seven times before they buy something. So, the client that bought the ¨Natural Color Hand weft hair extensions¨ today, has been checking them seven time before, perhaps not only in your shop, but there is a good chance she has been reviewing you and your shop before.
Thanks to the internet, thanks to tools like Google Analytics and the analytical page of Facebook you will be able to learn what kind of products, items published on your website and postings on Facebook attract people and the ones that does not. With Google analytics for example you will be able to see what parts of your website or web shop attracts the attention of most visitors, you will also be able to see, over time, the cities your visitors come from, what webpage is interesting for them and what makes them leave your site right away (bouncing). You are even in the position to see exactly which specific products is the most favorite even if it is not bought.

Analytics will also allow you to see how many new and returning visitors are visiting your online hair store. If people do not return, your product offering needs some rethinking. If you have a high percentage of returning visitors but low level of sales, you should check the price level from the competition. Your hair is attractive, and people like to review your products, but your conditions (price, shipping, payment) might be a hurdle to buy.

If you regularly take note of this kind of information, next to your sales figures, you are building up a great knowledge of the behavior of your clients. And with this knowledge you will be able to predict their behavior if you promote a certain article, or if another event occurs. You will be able to predict the future!

This kind of predictions only work if you have a longer time of observations and significant number of visitors. So be careful in interpreting this data if you just started with your web shop. You need some time to get reliable and sufficient information you can work with.

And now you are ready, time for the last step!

Step Ten – Open for business!

Finally, after all the preparation, it is time to tell the world you opened your online hair store. Make sure the world knows and organize a great event to celebrate the opening. People should speak about that new hair shop in town. And do not forget to let me know so I can help you to let the world know, through the website and social media platforms!

You know who your clients are, you know what you do better or cheaper than the competition and you can predict the future. This should be the key to success.

Yes, but… there are more steps to take to grow your online hair store.

As the market changes, as people change, the trends evolve over time you must repeat all these steps every now and then. You should, except for selling you hair extensions keep on listening to your clients. Especially with the client who had a complaint or that you have not seen for a long time. Keep an eye on the market and keep on inventing new Unique Selling Points.

I wish you good luck and I would love to hear from you how your online hair store is going on! I will support you! Check the products we offer to help you.