Ms. Borgman

Spas, Health & Fitness

Designed to Sell: Integrating Retail into Your New Spa

By Peggy Borgman, President, Preston Wynne, Inc.

Do Your Guests Want to Shop in Your Spa?

Spa guests seem to be shopping virtually everywhere but their favorite spa. Mass marketers understand this, and have slapped the word "spa" on everything from dish soap to shoes. Spa guests are ready, willing and able to shop your Stay Spa. But what motivates them to buy?

Our consultancy conducted a survey of spa shoppers that showed 93% of the spa client's decision to buy home care was based on the recommendation of their spa technician or therapist. In the absence of recommendation, guests will buy familiar brands, sometimes refilling a product they've purchased in the past. This has led many spas to conclude that brands, not employees, are the most powerful source of sales. This simply isn't true.

Massage therapists who post 10% of their total revenue in retail are top performers. Nail technicians and hair stylists who attain 15% retail ratio are stars. For estheticians, this number rises to 35-40% in the Stay Spa setting. But none of these employees have a chance to attain such numbers if they can't easily make home care presentations to their clients as part of normal workflow. Most Stay Spas unwittingly make retail sales a challenge for even the most motivated employee.

The ideal scenario is a spa retail design that facilitates prescriptive selling by the staff and offers a stimulating "self serve" shopping experience , too.

Don't Ghettoize Your Retail

Stay Spas have traditionally "ghettoized" their retail centers, isolating retail products in moribund boutiques that are often far from the spa's treatment areas. I've received recommendations from Stay Spa estheticians who could not take me to a retail area to demonstrate their product. This disconnect has a dampening effect on sales.

The Point of Service is also the Point of Purchase

For robust retail results, products should be available to see, touch, and try in the areas where guests spend the most time. One solution used by a number of spas is a small retail "satellite" within the spa's treatment areas, in addition to the more conventional boutique. Other spas include attractive retail displays (secure) in the treatment rooms, or throughout the spa. These visual hints create the expectation of a shopping experience. But this must be coupled with a properly merchandised retail area.

In the vast majority of Stay Spas, guests are left to wander hushed boutiques on their own, and often have to hunt for someone to sell them a product. A friend recently recounted for me how she was unable to make a purchase following her spa service because the resort spa's boutique had already closed for the evening. Such low expectations of the spa guest's shopping desire guarantee low sales.

Liberate Your Retail Products

Products don't sell when locked behind glass or displayed behind counters. Mass merchandisers have embraced open merchandising; so should you. Mass merchandisers are also using "play" areas with tempting samples. Making the sensory connection to the product is a great way to make the sale.

Build Workflow Around Retail, Not Just Service

Home care happens after the service, once the therapist or technician has evaluated the client's needs. But what about when a guest receives several treatments? One concept that is increasing in popularity is a post-treatment consultation and checkout area, removed from check in. Check out, particularly when it includes home care, takes a bit of time. Guests coming into the spa are often in a rushed, harried or boisterous mood. This energy breaks the spell for the exiting guest. A quiet, pleasant checkout "lounge" with comfortable seating keeps guests from feeling rushed. It increases their willingness to linger and their desire to extend their spa experience through shopping.

Provide ample area to review written recommendations and examine products. A table or counter that enables guests to evaluate the recommendations, in an area staffed by a knowledgable retail coordinator, will dramatically boost sales. If you don't have enough area in your facility for a retail "lounge", staffing with a dedicated checkout host will still produce higher sales.

Don't Squander the Sweet Spot

Spa designers usually overlook the retail "sweet spot" in a spa, which is the first 200 square feet of the facility. This is the most productive part of the selling floor. I don't blame architects for wanting to create stunning entry statements, but that entry statement needs to include home care products. Browse through an issue of Visual Merchandising and Store Design (VM & SD) or Display and Design Ideas. The new Prada store in Beverly Hills is a stunning example of retail design that makes an aesthetic splash. A superb example of the hybrid of spa and shopping are the Aveda Lifestyle stores.

Use Retail as an Invitation

Everyone feels comfortable shopping, but not all hotel guests feel comfortable visiting your spa. Converting new spa goers requires meeting them halfway. Creating a retail zone in the front of your spa brings guests into the spa in a non-intimidating way. This "transition zone" helps put intimidated guests at ease.

Include a Store Planner

Great visual merchadising doesn't have to mean compromising aesthetics. Many hotel and spa designers don't have store planning expertise. Put a store planner on the design team from the beginning. Don't "bolt on" a retail store and expect it to integrate into the spa's workflow. I think one of the spa manager's "can't miss" trade events is the GlobalShop Expo (www.globashop.org). Think like a store, sell like a store!

Move Toward the Light

Shoppers naturally move from darker to lighter areas in stores. Guide them into your retail center with lighting cues, or paths. If your spa retail area is too dim, no one will be able to see the merchandise. Be sure to include a lighting designer on the team that understands retail. Store lighting design is a specialty.

Spa Culture Vs. Retail Culture

Massage therapy, the mainstay service of most Stay Spas, is not the strongest driver of retail and home care. Many therapists are afraid to make home care recommendations. Unfortunately, spas have allowed these fears and limitations on the part of their employees to convince them that guests don't want to shop in the spa. There is also a bizarre debate in the spa industry about whether massage therapists can ethically recommend home care. (If they can ethically recommend another massage treatment, they can ethically recommend that someone de-stress with an lavender aromatherapy bath twice a week!)

Shoppers Need Signals

In the absence of a strong sales team, visual merchandising becomes even more crucial to attaining retail sales. And even in an environment where the spa employees are good retailers, their professional recommendation is most powerful when supported by an environment that provides reinforcing sales cues to guide the guest/shopper. If you deprive consumers of the shopping signals they're conditioned to expect, they buy less. Pave the way with excellent lighting, great visual merchandising, and first-rate fixturing. Design with the nexus of spa care and home care in mind and your retail program will drive greater profit and increased customer satisfaction.

Peggy Wynne Borgman is President and founder of Preston Wynne, Inc., which operates day and hotel spas as well as Preston Wynne Success Systems, a spa consultancy and training organization. PWSS seminars train management employees for the top tier of the international hospitality industry, as well as independent salons and spas throughout the US and Canada. Ms. Borgman is a frequent speaker at events such as the IESC and ISPA conferences and author of Four Seasons of Inner and Outer Beauty (Random House). Ms. Borgman can be contacted at (408) 741-1750 ext 30 or pwb@prestonwynne.com Extended Bio...

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