How to Have an Efficient Backbar

Running a salon takes a lot of versatility and stamina. Balancing the workload of managing staff, a backbar, and clients day in and day out is no small task. Burnout and fatigue are real issues that have plagued the salon industry for far too long. We are here to help end this trend by taking the stress off your backbar management.

Your backbar is one of the most important areas of your business. Having a streamlined backbar will save you hours of stress and better your bottom line.

Understanding Your Cost of Goods Sold

What is the value of your product usage at each appointment?

Your backbar is only as good as the staff, and the practices that surround it. Countless salons have gone out of business due to a lack of transparency with their COGS and pricing structure. Cost of goods sold is the total product cost used in a complete a service. Salons and stylists that are free pouring color at the backbar without adequately calculating the correct amount used. Then go on to charge a flat rate for product usage will inevitably be letting money walk out their door. This is not a sustainable business practice that will eventually be detrimental to your cash flow and profitability.

How can technology be used to help stop this fiasco?

SalonScale allows you and your team calculate your product usage at your backbar for every session in real time! You'll never have to question if you priced too much or too little for a service ever again.

No two manes are the same! Every client requires a different amount of product based on hair length, thickness, and density. It doesn't make sense to charge your clients based on a “one size fits all” fee. A variable cost pricing model will allow your salon to profit from every client.

SalonScale was built to make your backbar efficient and profitable by determining your exact cost of doing business for every client.

Saving Your Clients Formulas

Are your client’s formulas all saved in a book at the back? Or, maybe a stack of recipe cards where you can’t tell it’s "7NA" or "7N" because of a color smudge.

While you mix and weigh your product, SalonScale will save the formula used to your client's profile. This makes it easy to recreate formulas and makes “the same thing as last time,” a breeze. Client profiles allow you to leave notes in case you need more of less for next time. Having your client's profile also helps to provide more accurate consultations for future appointments.

Inventory Management

Counting What?

Let's face it, nobody wants to spend a Sunday afternoon at the salon counting out tabs and empty bottles. Inventory has long been a dreaded task in most salons. As an industry whose business heavily relies on trends and ever-changing styles; salons have started ordering higher quantities of products to meet the growing demand.

Higher quantities of products being purchased, stored, and restocked have complicated inventory processes. We like to call this “just-in-case” ordering. Not having direct insight into what is in your backbar, how much of each product and what’s missing; makes inventory management a necessary evil. You could have thousands of dollars of product sitting on the shelf going unused, and not even know it!

Implementing technology allows you to move towards a “just-in-time” ordering system. Where salons order products when about to run out in order to minimize product sitting on their shelves for long periods of time.

There's growing demand for an inventory management solution across the salon industry. We're here to tell you that you can throw away your inventory clipboard for good, and replace it with a simplified digital solution!

SalonScales' inventory management feature was created to streamline and enhance your salon's inventory processes. Having all your inventory data in one place you can easily see when your stock is running low, if you have just the right amount, or if you're carrying too much. SalonScales’s snapshot feature offers you a snapshot feature that clearly displays the exact number of your stand-alone products in stock and the dollar value of your entire salon's inventory. This Inventory reporting and analyzing simple and efficient, the way it should be.

Summary

Your backbar is the heartbeat of your business and running it efficiently will make your business more profitable. You have enough on your plate running a business, any chance you get to streamline your practices with technology you should take advantage. Implementing technology into your backbar will give you and your team more time and freedom. Time that can be used to focus on client's experience without worrying if you're making you a profit.