Do not let the Coronavirus eat your profit!

Feb 1, 2020 | Get Help, Launch Your Web Store, WholeSale Companies

Sales will drop due to Coronavirus regardless the origin of your hair!

There is no more doubt, the Coronavirus will eat the profit of most stores all over the world. The measures to protect the outbreak, the uncertainty and uncontrollable spreading all over the world will slow down the economies and with this your sales too.

Despite the advice from the World Health Organisation, the US and Australia said they would deny entry to all foreign visitors who had recently been in China. Earlier, countries including Russia, Japan, Pakistan and Italy announced similar travel restrictions. The advice from the WHO is to limit the negative economical and health impact of the Coronavirus. But a ban also has a discriminatory impact, people start to avoid people who might be a risk to their health. Even if there is no reason whatsoever. I also think we should in times of crisis help and comfort each other. How difficult this might be because of all the uncertainties.

But all this means on top of lower availability of stock, there is less appetite to buy any new product or good. Less demand for hair and wigs will most probably hit your bottom line this quarter. Less sales and perhaps less profit.

Time for some measures to fight the Coronavirus.

Do not sit still and wait until the virus is gone and we have time to worry about other things. Now it is the best time to react and to fight the virus.

Why will people buy less hair extensions or wigs?

To understand why people will buy less, you must realize economy has everything to do about feeling good. If your client know she will get a salary rise, even before she gets the rise she starts thinking in possibilities. “What if I buy more of this, or what if I redecorate my house, or what if I buy a new wig?” This has helped the healthy economic growth for the last several years. But now this is under pressure due to the Coronavirus. The weird thing is, even if you do not sell hair from Chinese suppliers, or if you are in an area far away from Coronavirus victims, people, will still prefer to keep their hands on the pockets.
If you want to see the proof of this, just check the red figures on the stock markets all over the world. Investors like to buy stock in companies they believe will make more sales and profit in the future. If they expect disappointing sales, they sell the stock and the value will go down.

Also, the CEO’s of major firms like Apple, Starbucks and McDonalds foresee lower growth and reduce operations. This will not only impact the operations in China, but all over the world. Chinese people will travel less and consume less. The Government has placed restrictions on family or group gatherings, while people have less to buy. This again will also influence the import of certain goods.
Overall there is less money to spend, and this will impact the economy all over the world. People will prefer to keep the money in their pocket.

What can you do about it?

As mentioned before, it is important to educate your clients about the risk of the Coronavirus. Or better how limited that risk is, especially for the hair you are selling. This is again an opportunity to show how well experienced you are. So, write a blogpost about the Wuhan Coronavirus in relation to the product you offer. For some background information see my previous blogpost. People are searching the internet for news about the virus, so it will help to be specific and to use the keyword Coronavirus with some terms related to the hair you are selling.

Next to this, see if you can offer some discount coupons. People might hesitate to buy goods they do not see as their first priority. We all know you can fight anything from scary spiders to the Wuhan Coronavirus if only your hair looks gorgeous. A discount might do the trick to seduce your client to still buy the hair. Make sure you put a time limit to the offer, otherwise she will still wait to buy the hair until the virus has been long forgotten.

Organize a hair extensions party with China as your special theme. People will be curious to know more about your hair and about china. The unknown has always been attractive. This way people can talk about their fears and share with each other stories. Make sure you have enough knowledge yourself to answer any question about the Coronavirus or ask somebody with a medical background to support you. You will see, once your guests are feeling relaxed, they will be very fast in the buying mode. And what can they buy? Your beautiful hair!

Leave a comment below to tell me how you are fighting the Coronavirus to keep on selling hair!

How can I get hair cheaply to sell as wholesale?

Nov 26, 2019 | Make Your Dream Happen, Prepare for the Launch, Sell Online

You want to enjoy the growing demand for hair in your country. You see more and more small hair stores to launch and grow their hair business. To help these businesses to sell hair to their clients you want to get hair cheaply to sell at wholesale to them. But how cheap should the hair be? Before you start the negotiations, you need to know what you can charge your own clients. If you do not have this knowledge you might end with hair that is still too expensive. Or you might refuse good quality hair at a price that still could have made you very profitable. Learn how to get the hair cheaply, at a price that allows you also to make a profit!

Know your market

Before you ask for a low price for the hair, at wholesale conditions, you need to perform a market survey. You need to understand your local market.

The competition

What is the competition? How many other firms offer hair at a low price and sell it as wholesale? If you check the competition, do not only consider the selling price. There are several other items you should include in your survey.

What kind of quality do they offer;

How broad is their product offering?
How is their aftersales service organized?
What is the reputation of the company?
How do they market the hair?
Do they accept returns?

This kind of questions you should ask for say 4 to 5 competitors. If possible both wholesale companies located in your country and wholesale companies abroad. For the foreign companies, you should be sure they do ship to your country.

Launch your own hair store with the all in one hair business package, complete with hair samples

Take also into account any new company that might enter the market in the foreseeable future. In neighboring countries there could be companies that wants to benefit from the economy of scale. This might allow them to enter your home market at very competitive prices. This is possible if they can offset the expenses for the new wholesale operations against the cost base of their current company.

Hair Store Names

Ask About Selling Hair

The products

You should also think if there are any new products that might be a substitution for the products you are going to offer. For example, if you only offer synthetic hair, demand for human hair might have a negative impact on the demand for synthetic hair.

But also, product enhancements might weaken your position. Or strengthen if you offer products that have recently entered the hair market.

The buyers

Now you understand the landscape about the competition and the products. The next step is to learn about the needs of the buyers. If you want to offer wholesale hair, you need to map the salons and resellers that might be in need to get hair cheaply. Here again you can ask yourself the same questions as for the competition. Understand what they want to sell, only your hair or also the hair from other firms? What is the retail price they can charge to their clients. What other incentives will they give to their clients to convince them to buy their hair?

Will they prefer drop shipping, where you keep the stock and only deliver the retail orders? What will the impact be in terms of logistics and inventory plus packaging?

At what conditions do they expect you to pre finance their sales?

How can I get hair cheaply to sell as wholesale?

This question depends as you have read on so many different items. From competition, product trends and the buyers.

If you are ready to start the negotiations with the hair supplier in order to get hair cheaply you need to calculate the above in your price.

Calculate how much it will cost you to exceed the services the competition offers now, and your clients are eager to get.

If your customers want you to keep the stock, until they have a buyer, make a calculation about how much this extra inventory will cost you.

In the all-in-one hair business package, you will find calculation templates.

These templates will guide you through the calculations needed to know how much you can charge your clients. But also calculating backwards, to learn how much the wholesale price for you needs to be.

Negotiate the right wholesale price

Now you have all the knowledge needed to start the negotiations about the price for the wholesale hair. You will not only be able to focus the conversation on the right hair and price, you will at the same time protect your own profit, because you know exactly your maximum price.

Let me know if you want the calculation sheets.

How much to markup Donna Bella Tape In extensions?

Oct 13, 2019 | Find Hair, Launch Your Web Store, Prepare for the Launch, USA

Jenna told me, she started to offer Donna Bella Tape in Extensions. But the question raised, how much to markup if you sell Donna Bella, or another well-known hair brand? It will not take your customer a lot of effort to compare the price with the Donna Bella website. What would be a smart and profitable markup strategy?

There are two key elements to consider. First, what are the cost you have to bear for the tape in extensions you purchased from Donna Bella? The second question you must ask, what is the price range I can put for my services?

How much to markup Donna Bella tape in extensions?

What are the cost you need to bear for the extensions you purchased from Donna Bella?

Okay, we mention Donna Bella, but the following applies for all kind of extensions you buy from other brands. Donna Bella writes on their blog: “There’s no easy answer about how much a stylist should charge for a hair extension job.” But you want an answer anyway, so that is why I wrote this post.

Find a name for your store

Start Selling Now, with Hair Samples

Purchase cost Hair Extensions

It all starts with the purchase price of the hair you bought from the wholesale supplier. This price depends on the quality and quantity. The more kilo’s or bundles hair you buy, the lower the price per bundle. That is economies of scale. Here you can make the difference from people who buy retail volume, say 3 to 5 bundles. Better to wait some time. Get more orders in from your clients and negotiate a nice purchase price per bundle with your supplier.

The payment transaction fees

Next to the purchase price, you have to pay for the payment services. Especially when you have a wholesale supplier from abroad.
If you pay using PayPal, there might be a 3 to 5 percent payment charge. If you use Western Union or Money Gram you will have a similar charge. The first, PayPal has a buyer’s protection. If something goes wrong with the shipment and you do not get what you expected you get your money back. The wholesale supplier has the opportunity to explain they did everything to make sure you received what you expected.

MoneyGram and Western Union do not have any buyer’s protection. This is a payment method many suppliers prefer. Because they do not run the risk to lose hair shipment and receive no money. This way of payment you can consider after you build up a good relationship with the seller. For higher amounts this is even cheaper.

So, on your notebook you now have two amounts.

The purchase price of the hair bundles
Plus, the payment transaction fees.

The shipping costs

You know buying from Alibaba or AliExpress will most often not charge you for shipping cost. Thanks to the high volume of these platforms, the suppliers offering their hair benefit from very low shipment prices. But please do not forget, if your hair has to be transported from A to B there are expenses involved. Sometimes these expenses are already included in the selling price, but very often they are charged separately. The last allows for more exact pricing, because if you agree on a shipment with more days involved you will pay less. If you accept no insurance of the shipment, again you will pay less. This freedom will allow you to save hard cash on your shipment charges. This is not possible if the seller does not separately charge for shipping, but has it included in the selling price per bundle or kilo.

Now we have three amounts on your notebook:

The purchase price of the hair bundles
The payment transaction fees, plus
The shipment charges.

What is the price per bundle after payment and shipping?

Now you have all the figures you need to calculate how much you need to markup your purchased hair extensions. The original purchase price, the payment commission or fee and the charges for shipping.
There are two methods to calculate the markup per bundle.

You can calculate with every order the total cost per bundle. All you have to do is to divide the total amount by the number of bundles you are going to sell. This will give you the amount per bundle that will generate not a loss and not a profit on this transaction. This way of calculation is simple, but you will have to recalculate your selling price after every new purchase.

Or you can estimate the number of bundles you are going to sell this whole year and estimate the total amount you are going to invest in hair, plus charges. If now you divide the total cost by the total number of bundles you are going to buy this year, you will have a stable cost price of the hair. Your cost price will be fixed for one year.

Please continue reading!

Be aware, you need a higher markup

Please, I hope you did not stop reading after the last paragraph. Because with the cost price you calculated you miss a reward for all the other expenses related to doing business. The rent of your store or supply room, the maintenance of your webstore, the fuel of your car for the home visits to your clients and many, many other expenses.

Luckily you started the year with a good business plan. So, you have a good idea of all the operational and marketing cost it takes to keep on doing the hair business. Every bundle you are going to sell should also compensate for these expenses. Here we use the same formula. You divide all the operational and marketing expenses per bundle you purchased. Together with the cost price per bundle, you will have the minimum price you should charge not to make any loss or profit.

Wait! Stop! You are in this business to make a profit. So again, you have to continue reading because now we are going to discuss the part where you are going to make a profit!

How much to markup Donna Bella tape in extensions

Now you will find out if you are a real entrepreneur. Because now you know the lowest price of the Donna Bella tape in hair extensions or any other bundles. With the next step you step in the footsteps of many great entrepreneurs. You are going to decide how much profit you are going to make per bundle.

Check the following post for ideas and support to calculate the highest markup you can charge.

post profitable pricing strategy

If you offer Donna Bella hair combined with a treatment, you do not need to inform the client of the exact price of the hair.

Offer an all-in-one treatment:

Donna Bella hair
install and
together with the best service in town

Now you can sell the Donna Bella hair at a higher price than the price on the website of Donna Bella. Agree? leave a comment!

Cybercrime, will only hurt other hair stores not you!

Nov 1, 2017 | Support

Home 9 Tag: Hair Extensions Business Plan

Every 10 minutes a cybercrime takes place, and this number is only rising. Good for you only other hair and beauty stores will fall victim. Right?

Wrong! Too bad, this is not true, you run the risk to lose all your client data, your bookkeeping system and analysis and agreements with your hair suppliers. In only one moment of carelessness.
Open the email from Great Lengths with an interesting offer, attached with an Email, but this turns out to be a fake mail. Or you pick the phone because you are ready to talk hair and the person on the other side claims to be a Microsoft employee. Guiding you with an excuse about a system error into a straight hack.

There are 1,001 ways to trick you, the people behind cybercrime learn from every step you take. Because small and medium sized businesses often do not have a dedicated IT security team or officer, they are more vulnerable. This means your hair store can become very easy a victim of Cybercrime.

10 Steps to Keep Your Hair Store Protected from Cybercrime

Please, it is better to avoid all the damage and pain of lost data, locked computers or all your communication on the street. See ten steps to be smarter than criminals, or at least until they found something new to trick you. We have put some steps everybody can take, even if you think you have no feeling for computers at all.

Want a webstore that increases your hair sales?

Yes!

1. Keep your operating systems updated and regularly patched.

In many cases you only must turn on the switch for automated updates. No need to put this on your to do list, except for the first time, or when you have a new device. People who commit Cybercrime often use securities flaws, vulnerabilities of the system. With every update, the latest flaws are solved by the software manufactory.

2. Have a firewall plus software that opposes virus, spyware and phishing attacks.

This is a clear example of penny wise pound foolish, to save money on a lock on your door and to give burglars free access is not smart. Most often the expenses of a firewall and anti-virus software are tax deductible. So, no reason to cut your expenses here and purchase a good anti virus program.

3. Keep your browsers updated always with the latest version of the software.

This is the same as number one. Check now if you have the latest version of your browser installed.

4. Keep all system software updated.

This is the same as number one and three. Use this moment to check if you have the latest version of your system software installed. This is the software that handles the performance of your device it self.

5. Encrypt your wireless network.

Overwrite the standard default password and security settings of your WIFI network. It might cause some inconvenience because you must re-activate the network on your phones and other devices. But baby it’s worth it, because we work more and more wireless.

6. Restrict software and set up administrative rights so that nothing can be installed on company computers without authorization.

Use the restriction as administrator on your computer only for yourself or dedicated staff members. Give limit access rights to others. Be aware the cybercriminals aim at access at the level of administrator. This will allow them to control all other systems of your hair store

7. Block access to restricted sites with Internet filters to prevent employees and hackers from uploading data to storage clouds.

It’s a kind of parental control, as administrator you can also limit users to visit sites that could damage your IT structure or network.

9. Remove or disable USB ports so that malicious data can’t be downloaded

The danger does not always have to come through the same door. Make sure you have your systems behind closed doors with limited access and reduce the number of USB ports people can use.

10. Implement strict password policies.

Selecting a password that cannot be easily guessed is the first step toward keeping passwords secure and away from the wrong hands. Strong passwords have eight characters or more and use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols (e.g., # $ % ! ?). Avoid using any of the following as your password: your login name, anything based on your personal information such as your last name, and words that can be found in the dictionary. Try to select especially strong, unique passwords for protecting activities like online banking.

Keep your passwords in a safe place and try not to use the same password for every service you use online.
Change passwords on a regular basis, at least every 90 days. This can limit the damage caused by someone who has already gained access to your account. If you notice something suspicious with one of your online accounts, one of the first steps you can take is to change your password.

11. Backup entire drives, folders and files.

Make sure you make a backup of your files, folders and drives. Keep the backup at a safe place and always make two backups. The father, grandfather system. Always replace the eldest backup (grandfather) when you make a new backup. By doing so you will eliminate the risk you overwrite the wrong data and keep a copy of your work. When you use WordPress / Woocommerce for your hair store you can use plugins to automatically create a backup.

Do not forget to practice how to restore a backup, to test it all works. You do not want to find out the backups are not complete when you need to restore your systems.

You need capital as a woman, stop saying sorry

by Stefan Franken | December 20, 2019 | Get Help, Make Your Dream Happen, Prepare for the Launch | 0 Comments

Women stop saying sorry, it keeps you from getting capital! As little brother with 2 sisters, and father of 3 girls I do have some experience with how often women apologize. Not to me as a father, but yes in the interactions with the outside world. In my work I am...

How much money to start a Hair Business

by Stefan Franken | November 22, 2016 | All about money | 13 Comments

Starting a business means you are willing to take risks. Not the risk to lose everything you care about, but calculated risks.

If you want to start a hair extensions business you take a risk, and from some of you I receive the question how much money do I need to start. In other words, how much do I have to invest? If you know this amount, you know how much you must set apart, or to earn with your first sales

Peruvian hair extensions wholesalers

by Stefan Franken | July 17, 2015 | Get Help | 0 Comments

If you want to sell hair, make sure you first organize a market survey. If you know what your clients are looking for, you will not only be able to service them better, you will also get a better margin.If your audience has a clear interest for Peruvian hair...

The Best Period to Launch a Hair Extensions Business

Aug 9, 2017 | Sell Online

Throughout the year I work with ambitious people who want to launch a hair extensions business. The big question is very often what is the best period to launch a hair extensions business?

The best is to launch in a period thousands of eyes are searching the internet for new hair. Next to Valentine’s day this is the end of Year. If you want to benefit from the marketing effort of others, if you want to launch your hair in a period your clients are so eager to find the hottest hair in town, I recommend launching your hair store before Black Friday.
It’s only 100 days from now to Black Friday and that means you have enough time to launch a hair extensions business.
Use these 100 days to:
– Define your ideal client, to whom will you focus your marketing messages? Whose needs are you going to satisfy?
– Find the best hair wholesale suppliers for your Ideal Client
– Open social media and post attractive images, give your ideal client a taste of what is coming
– Design and launch your hair extensions website combined with a blog
– Optimize your payment, shipping and after sales process

The search engines like Google and Bing will need some time to pick up your new hair extensions business, thus make sure you are live at Least 6- 8 weeks before Nov 24th (Black Friday).

If you want to be in business and benefit from the end of year buying mood of your ideal clients start today. Especially for you there is an All-In-One Hair Extensions Business Package. Complete with hair suppliers, template to identify your ideal client, eBook and templates to calculate and forecast your profit, 30 minutes coaching and much more like free promotion.

If you prefer others to launch and grow their business this year, no need to do anything, but if you want your dream and passion to start earning money, this is the time to start!

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How can I get hair cheaply to sell as wholesale?