Two pricing strategies to boost your salon sales

This article was written for Salon Life by Chris Brennan of Phorest Salon Software

We all want to boost our salon profits, right? Well, we have a fantastic trick that you can use for your salon that will help you smash your profit targets. It comes down to a unique idea that makes sure that pricing isn’t as much of a factor in your client's decision.


This idea actually comes from an experiment that was conducted in the restaurant industry.

And this experiment focused on the currency symbol.

The Experiment

A New York-based restaurant called St. Andrews wanted to see if the currency symbol was providing a negative or a positive impact on their client's buying motivation.

So they simply A-B tested it: they provided two different menus. One with the dollar sign next to the price of each item. And one without the dollar sign. And the results were surprising.

Patrons who received the menu without a currency symbol actually spent more money - (quite a bit more , actually) -  than people who received the traditional menu.

Pretty amazing, right?

So how does this work?

When clients in the restaurant saw the dollar sign, a subconscious defense mechanism kicked in. They stopped thinking of which option they would like and instead, they started thinking about which option they could afford.

By simply removing the currency symbol, the operator also removed the weight and emotion that comes with it.

The exact same thing goes through the mind of your salon’s clients. When they see the currency symbol, many customers will begin scrolling through the options, looking for a ‘more reasonable’ choice.

By removing that symbol, your clients can focus their attention on the descriptions of the services and products instead.

And there’s more!

The study also revealed another amazing tactic; if you put one service or product on your menu that has a significantly higher cost than the rest, you can see a substantial increase in purchases of the other items.

Basically, this means that, if your clients see something expensive on the menu, then everything else seems like good value in comparison. 

This item is called the ‘Anchor’ and this anchor works best in the Three Pricing Level Technique.

In essence, this involves listing three items next to each other: one of them is a very high price option. This is the anchor.

The next, (the one in the middle) should be a little less expensive than the first one.

And finally, a third option should be available that can be deemed as cheaper.

With this technique, your clients will now compare the options of all three and decide on which one they find the most value in.

A note of caution:

The Three Pricing Level Technique is not about just shoving something average into a high price. The value of each item should be reflected in the price. It’s more about creating options for your client to compare.

And that’s it: Two simple pricing strategies to radically increase your salon profits!

What do you think? Is this an idea you would like to test out in your salon? Drop us a line to let us know your thoughts. Or better still, if it works for you, let us know the results.

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