Post-Holiday Spa Clean Up

It’s Time For Your Spa’s Post-Holiday Clean Up

Post-Holiday Spa Clean UpEveryone loves the holiday season, whatever one you celebrate, but the season does have to come to an end.  You may be the kind of person who likes to leave their Christmas tree up until mid-January, but the longer we drag out the holidays in a business setting, the harder it is to get the clients excited for next year.

In this, the last week of the year, it’s time to take stock of your facility and retail area.  Hopefully your careful planning in purchasing and displaying a carefully selected variety of holiday merchandise resulted in positive sales increases for Q4, but no doubt you have some merchandise left over.

Now, what should you do with the remnants?

When is the holiday officially over?  The answer is January 2.

I’ve walked into some salons and spas in mid-January and found them still decorated to the hilt with ribbons, bows, and fading poinsettias.  I believe that this is an area in which you should take your cues from major retailers, and denude your facility of holiday detritus sooner than later.  Just like Starbucks switches back to those plain white cups right after New Year’s, it’s time to start fresh.

First, box up and put away all of the reusable decorations for next, or another, year.  If you have living décors such as amaryllis, poinsettia or lilies, send them home with your staff members.  Remove stringed and hanging lights and decals from windows.  Drink up the Christmas blend coffee and distribute among staff and friends the rest of the cookies, cakes and other treats.

How about merchandise?

It’s okay to put merchandise on sale, but only for a short time.  Gather up all of the remaining bits and have a holiday sale table, for a week or two, but then it’s time to move on.  If they didn’t sell, bite the bullet and be decisive.  Some high quality unsold holiday-themed gift merchandise such as makeup brushes, jewelry, cosmetic bags and household décor items can be stored and reintroduced next October, but the rest you should remove from both your shelves and your balance sheets.  Offer it to staff for a fraction of the original price, sell it off (by the lot) on eBay, or give it to charity.

Purchased too many nail polishes or body lotions?   Negotiate with your vendors and see if you can trade for new spring items.  Overstocks of non-holiday themed items are particularly useful as grab bag rewards for client referral or loyalty programs.

Did you add special holiday services to your menu?  If any of these was a particularly good seller, you may want to consider adding a version of it permanently to your treatment menu, just make sure that you remove something else when you do, to ensure against a swelling menu selection.  Run a service sales report for the year, and consider removing any services that you performed 30 or less of.

The onset of a new year is also an ideal time for a good spit-and-polish cleaning of your whole facility, top to bottom.  This is often best accomplished by hiring an outside cleaning company, not your usual cleaners who by now are ignoring the same continual problem areas that you were when you handled the cleaning, or may still.  Fresh eyes and elbow grease are welcome.  Or, find a 4 to 5-hour window of time when the facility is closed and invite your staff to come pitch in; reward those who show up with pizza, sushi and/or movie tickets.  Perhaps, you can even give out raffle tickets for baskets of leftover holiday retail!

Are you ready to launch 2018 with new ideas and treatments? Do you need help putting together your plan? Tap into our experience and contact us for a free consultation.

 

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