Are you offering your clients online shopping?

Luke Evans, General Manager for Aveda UK & Ireland looks at consumer retail habits post lockdown and how to keep them shopping with your salon.

 Following the government’s decision to introduce a second lockdown and temporarily close salons, Aveda was immediately back in action to support our salons.

With varying degrees of restrictions and salon closure requirements in place across the UK and Ireland, we committed to continuing to support our salons’ individual needs as we navigated these uncertain times together, whilst incorporating initiatives to help our salon network move forward.

Emerging from our first lockdown, we had a robust recovery plan to rebuild our salons in the  ‘new normal’, with an extensive virtual education programme to engage our teams, the disruptive Botanical Repair launch and the introduction of two industry first initiatives; Salon A-commerce and Powered by Flossie.

These two initiatives were born from our mission of care and through understanding how Covid has impacted consumer behaviour.

From our research, we found that:

• Women are missing their salons and stylists during this period, particularly for colour and cuts

• However, since many do not feel the pressure to look ‘presentable’ while at home and are trying to preserve the state of their hair, they are enjoying giving their hair a break from heat and washing – leading them down a path to hair health.
  
• As women become more healthy hair conscious – conditioning treatments, hair masks and scalp care are becoming a regular part of hair routines during lockdown.

• Women have had varying levels of success with DIY hair solutions, and most are looking to salons to repair imperfections as soon as they reopen. Women also miss the pampering that a trip to the salon offers

• Many have concerns about the logistics of returning to salons due to the risk of spreading and catching Covid19. Many hope there will be strict protocols in place upon reopening and expect salons to communicate this to them in detail

• In line with these concerns, there’s an indication that ‘clean’ and ‘safe’ ingredients and products are becoming more of a priority.  

Consumers go through many attitudinal and behavioural shifts within a situation such as the current global pandemic. These are crisis (this is where we see consumers looking for safety and spending on trusted brands), recovery (consumers will continue with many of their new learned online behaviours), and establishing a new normal (consumers will be even more focused on sustainability and social change).

The trends that resonate with them will shift as they adjust along the way, but Aveda is well placed within these trends and has the trust, heritage and authenticity to do so.

Another huge shift of course is onto online shopping. While this isn’t anything new for many of your guests, there are a large percentage who may never have shopped this way before, and having no other choice earlier in the year, are now used to shopping this way and will continue to do so for their haircare choices too.

To help our salons with this side of their business, we created an integrated e-commerce retail sales solution designed in collaboration with salons to help boost their sales.

Salon A Commerce enables salons to drive incremental retail sales by selling products online without any of the time, investment or inventory management traditionally associated with an e-commerce presence:

• Allows salons to now offer their guests retail products online in-between visits

• Salons earn 15% commission on all retail sales associated with their salon via Aveda.co.uk

• It’s free and simple for salons to set up themselves up with extensive training materials provided and Aveda covering all fulfilment costs.

From salons who have already trialled this and had not been offering any kind of online shopping before, they have found that new clients shopping online has gone up by a huge 1,600%! So if you haven’t thought about offering this to your guests before, now is definitely the time to do so.

www.aveda.co.uk