Understanding where to start a tanning spray salon business ensures success

Starting a business, any business, has the potential to become a gut-wrenching experience. Rather than put ourselves through that kind of pain and angst, here are a few ideas to consider before opening tanning spray salons.

Certainly there are practical considerations when it comes time to select the physical location of your new business. Financial realities will play a part, geography may as well; no one wants a 100 mile daily commute every day, availability of commercial space and proximity of the nearest Happy Hour are all key components in the decision-making process.

High foot traffic areas are often used as defaults when selecting a site, which can certainly work well. Besides increasing your visibility, potential customers are prime targets for promotional items, brochures and a friendly in-person invitation to your salon.

Choosing a location

Just for the heck of it, let?s try and take as much of the guesswork out of the equation as we can.

Let?s take a look at this poser from a slightly different perspective by allowing information to drive the decision-making, or at least help us narrow down the choices. In this case, information refers to understanding the customers that frequent tanning spray salons. If we can determine who our best customers are, we can find locations they either live in or frequent, perhaps even both.

While I would not bet the ranch on this data, it seems pretty close to what many would expect regarding the demographics of tanning salon customers. Most are women, approximately 70% though this number is shrinking as more men tire of pallid, ashy complexions. Tanning customers ages are between 20 and 44, income is around $50,000 annually, and they usually live within 3 miles of the salon.

Let us assume you see the logic in this approach and embark on a journey to learn the demographic specifics of your local tanning community, and they turn out to be pretty close to the figures above. The question then becomes what now? Ah, good question.

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Finding areas in your community with residents that match the tanning customer profile we?ve  determined can be done in a few ways.

Conducting a market research project to determine the demographics of various zip codes and areas is one option. Now, this can get a bit spendy, but can also help make the location decision much easier, depending on the results of the study.

If you feel like getting out for a cup of coffee and a pumpkin scone, enjoy your treats outside while observing the people in and around the local mall, university or business park being considered for tanning spray salons. This will give you a sense of who frequents the area, and when.

Existing business customers are a great resource of information. If this data is available, building current customer profiles can provide real insights into possible locations of the new business.

Taking a little time and doing a little research can take the guesswork out of the tanning spray salons site selection process. If you’re starting a new business, you will have plenty of other things to occupy your time.