If you own a barbershop and currently only offer haircutting services, this article can help you decide whether or not you would like to expand your services, as well as what services are the best option for you. There are a couple of different choices you can offer to your clients. First and foremost, you can extend the barber services you offer. This can include things like beard trims, shaping, and touch-ups. If you want to take your shaving services to the next level, you can have the option for your clients to upgrade to a hot towel shave.
Beards and Shaving Services
A service you can choose to offer if you don’t already is beard trimming and shaping. These types of services will fit in with the vibe in any barbershop. Beard upkeep requires a lot of time and effort, so many guys will look for professional help at some point during their beard-growing process. Some will need advice on how to keep their beard looking nice and neat while some will need some professional care to keep their beard in check. Offering this service opens the door for you to offer your services to current customers with beards. For skeptical customers who don’t want you to trim their beard because they are trying to grow it out, you can tell them to rest easy because beard trims can help promote healthy, thick growth. These additional services will also be a great source of additional income for you. We looked through some prices that other shops charge for this service and came up with an average of $15 per service.
For luxury treatment, there are many benefits of a straight razor shave that will keep your clients coming back to you for another. You can increase the appeal of this service by offering a hot towel shave rather than just a normal straight razor shave. This type of shave is relaxing, will give your clients a closer shave than they can get at home, and they won’t get any razor burn with this kind of razor! The hot towel applied before the shave will soften the hairs and open up pores to expose more of the hair to get the closest shave possible. Adding a cold towel to the end of the service will add an additional element of perfection to the service. This will seal their pores and help protect them from oil and dirt clogging them and creating blemishes and ingrown hairs.
If you already offer straight razor shaves, you already have the blades, so there will be a minimal upfront cost that will come from purchasing a machine to heat and cool the towels. If you do not already offer straight razor shaves, there is a larger upfront cost to purchase the straight razors. However, these kinds of razors stay sharp for long periods of time and can be sharpened for a small cost or in-house for no additional cost once the sharpening tools have been purchased. With this, you bring in the additional profit from the new service and then the cost of the equipment will be paid over within a few uses. To give you an idea of what kind of profit you can expect from this type of service, we gathered some prices from other barbershops and salons that currently offer this type of service and averaged the price they charge. We came up with an average of $30 for a hot towel shave.
Appearance Services
Appearance is becoming more and more important for men. They’re concerned about what clothes they are wearing, how their hair looks, the shaping of their facial hair, and what kind of accessories they put on. That being said, one feature men tend to neglect when it comes to appearance is their eyebrows. Eyebrows have been a big deal for women to keep up for years now. Recently, brow maintenance has also become a trend for men as well. It’s no longer acceptable to rock giant caterpillars on your face even if you’re a man. Sorry guys. This means there is a new need for this kind of professional service. You might need to take a class to make sure you do it well and make your clients look amazing but it will all be worth it when your clients come in telling you how many compliments they got. If you don’t feel like taking a class, you can always hire someone who is already skilled at eyebrow management. Another benefit is, of course, the profit that comes from offering a new service. The average price to pay for an eyebrow service is $22.25.
Another service that is up and coming is nail services for men. Some guys are interested in maintaining their nails up to the standards some women keep their nails too. This doesn’t mean all men are going out and getting acrylic nails put on every day, albeit some are, but men are taking an interest in keeping their nails clean and nicely clipped. Getting their nails done also gives them an opportunity to relax and chance to be pampered. There are also many health benefits that come along with having a professional manicure. These include callous maintenance, clean hands, exfoliation, healthy skin, increased blood flow, and nail technicians who can diagnose any infections you may be developing or anything that may be awry with their nails.
While many men who choose to get their nails professionally taken care of don’t usually put the polish on their nails, but there are benefits of putting nail polish on for certain careers. Take someone who works with materials that can stain their nails for example. Even a single coat of clear polish (they make matte topcoats in case you don’t want shiny nails) can help protect their nail bed from getting stained. For musicians, a coat or two of polish can help protect the nails from getting grooves in them and damaging the nail.
There are many different types of nail services you can offer. If you are looking to just offer nail services to your male clientele, you can offer simple manicures where you only clean, clip, file the nails, and apply a coat of polish if your clients decide they want it. These kinds of services can range from anywhere between $10 and $45. This price will depend on the products (like lotions and nail products) you choose to use in your services. You can offer polish changes to men who chose to have polish applied for anywhere from $5 to $15. Again, this will depend on the products you choose to supply.
If you are expecting your male clients to want the more complicated nail services, or you would like to offer nail services to women in the area as well, you can choose to offer additional nail services like gel polish and acrylic nails. These types of services can range anywhere from $25 to $70 for basic nails and additional costs for any designs and accessories they would like to put on their nails, usually around $5 to $15. If you offer acrylic nails, you can also offer acrylic fills which generally run from $30-$40 for all ten nails or $5-$10 per nail when repairing less than all ten.
Overall, there are a lot of ways you can offer a more modern experience in your barbershop. Whether you want to become the hot spot for luxury services or help men become more aware of the benefits of having their beards and nails taken care of professionally, you have several options on how you could expand your shop. Which of these ideas do you want to run within your shop? Do you have any other ideas that we didn’t cover? Let us know in the comments!