Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva, and this week, I thought we would talk about affiliate links for retail sales.
This is a topic that I believe has gotten a little bit of a nod on the Thriving Stylist Podcast in the past. It’s something I’ve strayed away from a little bit because I am passionate about retail sales some people might say. My stance on retail, I’m going to say it, it’s shifted. It hasn’t changed. I personally—let me just start at the top by saying I still believe it’s important to carry product in a hair salon, period.
When I look at—again, whenever I’m coaching to the industry, I study consumer behavior. I don’t look at what is trendy or what is fun or what somebody has to offer. I look at what consumers are doing and your consumers are your clients. When I follow their patterns and behaviors and what makes them buy, like make a purchase, choose to choose to invest in a new shampoo, having a physical product in their hand, taking something home at the time of visit is a really critical piece of that still, like the FOMO that I need it and I need it now.
When you look at sales psychology and what is making consumers move, all of that is still pretty relevant now in time. Do I think there’s a world where all hair salon retail shifts online? Absolutely. I mean, I think that as a people, more and more of us are shopping more and more online all the time, but I don’t want to jump the market and pull all retail out of salons just yet. It’s just not for me. I know some people have done it and done it successfully. That’s great. I just think for every dollar you make, what if you’re leaving three on the table? ‘Cause you’re not considering other options, but that’s just me.
All that being said, up until this point, if you go back and listen to any Thriving Stylist Podcast on retail, if you’ve taken my course Retail Therapy, I have not really coached to online retail sales at all until today. And this is going to be more of an investigative journalism piece again, where I’m just sharing information. I don’t necessarily have strong views on if you should do this, if you shouldn’t do it, but I thought let’s have the conversation.
This conversation starts where some of the best do, and it’s from this podcast. Somebody named Stephanie left me a rating or review on iTunes. And if you don’t know, now you know that’s where I get over half of the inspiration for these episodes.
I want to share with you Stephanie’s message and then we’ll dig in. Stephanie says, “You’re an amazing educator and host and I’m so thankful you put these business snippets out there for us to learn from.” Stephanie, thank you so much. That’s very kind of you.
Then says, “I would love to get your thoughts on the Amazon affiliate program as a way to earn commission on products. I know you say retail isn’t dead,” which it’s not. Our physical retail products in the beauty industry are at an all-time high. No, it’s not dead. “And while I believe that is true, things have definitely changed with many top brands now being in big retail stores and distributors. Is it best to follow suit and still earn commissions if you can? I’m an independent stylist at a booth rental salon, but it is something I need permission from my salon to do as it would take away from selling in the salon?”
So much to unpack here. I want to start by debunking the myth that Sephora and Ulta and Amazon are stealing your retail sales. No. You want to know the truth? You were never that good at selling it before and you’re still not good. For your clients, if you are not good at it, then they’re just going to wander the aisles of Ulta and figure it out themselves.
Trust me when I say they would much prefer you advise them. They would much prefer you say, “Hey Erica, you’ve been talking about seasonal dryness forever. You probably noticed seasonal dryness in your skin. Did you know that your hair gets seasonal dryness as well? I know, shocking. Here’s the three part system that would really work for you.”
But the problem is most of us aren’t having those conversations with our clients. We’re just trying to get through the day. We’re thinking about what’s coming up for lunch. There’s just too much going on. The client is just chatting away and you can’t get a word in edgewise. There’s all these barriers to having really powerful non-salesy educational retail sales. So what happens is, because we’re not having the conversation, clients are just like I said, wandering the aisles of these other places, are going on Amazon making guesses.
How do I know this? Because I have friends who are not Thriving-Stylist-Podcast friends, don’t care what I do professionally and tell me about their shampoo-buying woes. Or recently, I had a friend show up to a children’s sporting event. Both my kids are athletes, so I’m often at a children’s sporting event. I was at one of these fellas and her hair was greasy as all get out and we’re good friends, so I was able to say, “Oh no, oh no, what has happened here?” She was like, “Oh, it’s just this new way of doing dry shampoo and you set it.” She was trying to explain to me some very convoluted idea, and I was like, “Where in the world did you get this idea?” She had seen some social media video and just bought the thing and was hoping it panned out.
Y’all, your clients, human beings are making these terrible choices. Do you know how she got to that place of desperation? Because her stylist is not talking to her about hair.
That’s when I told her, I was like, “Girl, you don’t know this, but I used to do hair. Let me help you. Let me help you pick something.”
Because people are just walking around so uneducated—I’ll talk about myself. For example, I am not very good at doing makeup. It’s just not my thing. I’ve never been that into it, but I do wear makeup and I need to look nice for work events and stuff like that.
I am the lady who’s wandering Sephora too embarrassed to ask for help with 75 foundation shades from 19 different lines covering my arms and I’m starting to paint it on my legs, like it’s everywhere because I’ve covered my skin and foundation checks and I don’t even know what I’m looking for.
Have you ever been that consumer? That’s how your clients are feeling when they buy nine different dry shampoos and can’t figure out why none of ’em are working.
Don’t put your clients in that position.They actually would rather buy from you. You are just not feeling comfortable having the conversation.
Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox about retail.
Now that we’ve set that as the foundation, let’s talk about the online purchasing and or affiliate options that exist. I’m going to talk about, I think two I’ve planned for you today. Yes. Two.
I’m going to first start with Amazon because this was what Stephanie’s question was about. Now I will say the last time I researched Amazon affiliate links, it was for me a bold-faced no. I was like, no, the margins don’t make sense. The program doesn’t make sense. The product lines that are on there don’t make sense. But this was a couple of years ago. Flash forward to now, and a lot of professional haircare brands have partnered with Amazon.
There is a category on Amazon called Premium Beauty or Premier Beauty. It’s slash so one or the other. If you sign up for an Amazon affiliate account and through your affiliate link, somebody purchases—I’m going to list off some brands for you—but purchases a haircare product through one of these brands, a Premium Beauty or Premier Beauty brand, you get a 10% commission on that sale. That’s not bad. You’re not stocking inventory. 10 percent’s about, right.
When I looked at what the brands were, I’m going to name a few. This is not even 10%. I just pulled a selection I looked through really quickly. They have Amica, AG Hair, Alterna, Deva Curl, K18, Kendra, Malibu C, Olaplex, Oribe, Redkin, R&Co, and literally hundreds more in this Premier/Premium Beauty category.
Listen, it wasn’t a bad deal. The problem for me with that is—I have an Amazon affiliate code. I don’t use it very often. If you’ve been following me for a long time, you’re like, “She does, she never suggests stuff.” Yeah, I don’t really suggest very much with it, but I have one so I know how it works. You share the Amazon affiliate link and if somebody buys after clicking that link, yes, you can earn a commission.
Here’s my challenge with the system and what makes me nervous. Let’s say I’m your client and I’m in your chair and you convince me to buy a shampoo and conditioner set from Kenra, whatever. Great. So I’m there in your chair. I order the product, I’m so excited it shows up. That was great for that one time. But then the next time I’m just going to go to amazon.com and look up whatever shampoo and conditioner we talked about, add it to my cart. Now you’ve lost commissions for life. It was like a one-off, right? You convinced me, you sent me the link. Am I as the consumer going to go back and track down that link every single time?
I already hear some of you through this podcast are saying things like, “Well, my clients really love me. They would do it.” That is called delusion. No, they will not. I know your clients love you. I’m not here to argue against that. What I’m saying is think about yourself.
Remember when a friend of yours, your sister sent you a link to that gift that your nephew would like to have several months back and was like, “Here, when the holidays come up, he wants this thing.” And you’re like, “Okay, great, great, great.” But then life went on and you didn’t buy it yet. Now when you want to go buy the gift, you got to go to your texts, go search, link history, and you’re going back and down.
Now you do it because you love your nephew and you want to buy him the best thing. It’s worth it. When it’s a bottle of shampoo and conditioner that you already know the name. Why would you jump through all those hoops? You wouldn’t.
The average client is not going to do that. Sure, 20% will, 80% won’t. For 80%, the system falls apart.
If you wanted to use Amazon affiliate links, you have to be actively having retail conversations with your clients every time they come in to see you. It doesn’t mean you get to talk about retail less. You have to talk about more because you want to prevent them from jumping the gun and ordering from their own Amazon account, not on your link.
Now you’re like, “Hey, I’m so glad you’re here again. How did that shampoo and conditioner work out for you? Worked out great, awesome, let’s get your next order coming in.” Or you’re convincing ’em to buy a subscription on Amazon, right? ‘Cause that’s a choice too.
But again, having affiliate links and things like that doesn’t mean you’re selling less. It means you’re selling more. Just know you have to get very comfortable with those retail sales conversations ’cause the sell could slip pretty easily.
Let’s talk about Salon Interactive. Let me just interrupt right now and say neither Amazon affiliate or Salon Interactive are promoting or sponsoring this episode in any kind of way. I’ve not talked to anyone from Salon Interactive, we have no mutual relationship or whatever. When Stephanie asked the question, they’re a huge name in the beauty industry as it relates to online retail sales and I don’t think it’s fair to just leave them out of the conversation.
This is my unbiased, researched information. Most of this information I pulled directly from their website and I just want to share what I learned and that’s the place I’m coming from.
When we look at Salon Interactive and what they bring to the table, they work with 20 different distributors and 400 haircare products. It’s a pretty huge inventory. The brand was created by stylist, salon owner, and tech entrepreneur Jim Bauer, to provide salon clients, their salons, salon distributors, and salons brands with an e-commerce solution that respects and protects the integrity of professional salon products and equally importantly, the client/stylist relationship.
Now I can get behind a vision and mission statement like that. I love it.
From the research that I found, there’s two different plans. You can sign up with Salon Interactive as a seller—right, your client would be the buyer, you’d be the seller—for no monthly fee and you get about 25% commissions on the products that you sell. That’s a pretty significant commission split. Or you could pay $20 a month and bump that commission split up to 30% commissions. Whoa, that’s significant.
If you are planning to actually sell retail and have these conversations, that’s a pretty sweet deal. I mean, getting a 30% commission split on a retail sales fairly unheard of. I think that’s a pretty incredible opportunity.
Couple of questions that I think are worth tackling that were shared on their website.
First one, how is diversion controlled? We’re all very worried about diversion and so I think it was great that they tackled this. All products are sold on the platform at MSRP, which is manufacturer suggested retail price. So if anybody were to go there—you know how if you buy a bottle of, I don’t know, Redken shampoo, you maybe pay like 12 or $13 for it at the beauty supply, but then you sell it for like 23, 24, 25. They’re selling their products at the 23, 24 25, so it doesn’t make sense for anyone to buy at scale for diversion ’cause there would be no profit margin in it.
Next question. How and when do I get paid? Monies are deposited into your account every Friday for sales up through that Tuesday. There’s a 72-hour cutoff/delay. You can make sales Wednesday through Tuesday and then it hits the cutoff and then that Friday you’ll make the commissions for that sale turn cycle
This I thought was interesting: what happens to my commissions if there is a return? If you’ve ever tried to do retail and salon and dealt with returns, you know that this is a thing. Commissions are paid based on completed transactions and since returns are not a complete transaction, unfortunately commissions are not applicable. Any commissions already paid on returned orders will be recovered from commissions owed to you for your current or future sales.
So if somebody returns a product, you lose your commission. That’s not crazy. To me that seems normal because if you were to have a client return a product, usually what we would try and do is negotiate an exchange instead of a return. But even so, we’re losing cost on inventory, so the loss is the loss. I feel like that’s just a cost you pay when you’re doing physical goods business.
Lastly, how do your subscriptions work? When your client is signed in and chooses a product, they’ll see the option to purchase that product one time or as the subscription in two-week to six-month intervals. Your clients can edit their subscription anytime through their profile. I think that’s great. I think the service is really great.
I want to talk about how I would use that and/or Amazon. I also want to talk about selling product in the salon.
Like I’ve said a hundred times, and I’ll continue to say a hundred times. I think selling in the salon is critical. The reason why most salon retail programs are not profitable is that most salon owners and stylists don’t know what they’re doing. Admittedly or not admittedly, they don’t know what they’re doing.
A keystone markup is not profitable. I’ll say it one more time. A keystone markup is not profitable. Let me explain what keystone is. Keystone is you buy a bottle of shampoo for $10 and you sell it for $20. 100% markup. No, you’re operating at a loss.
Let me explain the math on that. If I buy a $10 bottle of shampoo and sell it for $20, in your mind you’re like, okay, well, you invested 10 but you sold for 20, so you made $10. No, you didn’t because you now need to take that $10, go back to the beauty supply store and buy another bottle of shampoo to restock your retail shelf and now you’re back at zero.
If you’re going to actually sell, and then let’s not even talk about all the products you have sitting on your shelf that are collecting dust that are expired. ‘Cause you don’t like all of them and you don’t sell all of them, right? That’s a whole ‘nother problem. But when you are using a keystone or a hundred percent markup, there is no margin in that.
When I coached to retail sales, I coach to at least a 120% margin so that you can be making money off of it. So you’d buy a product for 14, sell it for 31, you would end up making a 10% profit on that product, which is not bad.
The other thing is I coach to really smart retail stocking so that you’re not overstocked, you’re not sitting on products that don’t make sense.
I don’t do the one for one retail stocking technique. So if I sell a bottle of shampoo, I don’t necessarily restock it at all. Strategically knowing how to manage your inventory is really critical as well.
All this being said, if I was going to partner with any kind of online affiliate-based retail sales company, what I would do is sign up with the program and still stock not a huge amount, but a decent amount of product in the salon. As I’m having these powerful retail sales conversations, I’m saying, “Okay, Shelby, this is the haircare regimen that we’ve agreed upon. I’m going to bag this up for you today. This is yours to take home today. Moving forward, I want to get you set up with an autoship program,” and then sell them on the affiliate thing forward. But I think that it is such a critical piece of the sales experience to have something in their hand right now.
Have you ever bought something on delay or got something on delay? I can remember a friend of mine was given a golden retriever puppy for Christmas, but the puppy wasn’t ready yet. So on Christmas morning, her parents somehow spilled the beans and let them know that the Christmas gift was coming and they went that same day. They got to go meet the puppy, I’m sure absolutely fell in love. And then they came back home and had to wait several weeks for the puppy to come home. Bless my friend’s parents, they must be the most patient parents in the world. They were tortured for weeks waiting for that puppy to show up.
I know this is a very extreme example, like a child waiting for a puppy and an adult woman waiting for her bottle of hairspray should not be the same comparison. But when you look at sales psychology and sales mindset, people do get annoyed. “Okay, I’m going to order this and I have to wait five days for it to come.” It’s annoying. If I’m excited about it, I want it and I want it now.
This is why companies like Instacart exist. I want a loaf of bread and I wanted it in an hour. This is why if something doesn’t ship Amazon Prime, we’re not buying it. We have just become a very impatient people.
The idea of retail showing up on autopilot long term is great, but I think in the short term, you could end up losing out on sales.
For me, I like more of a hybrid approach. If you’re going to consider this, I think that’s going to be your best bet.
Y’all, and especially to Stephanie, thank you for asking such a beautiful, brilliant, and innovative question. I very much appreciate you. I would love it if you left a reading or rating or review on iTunes. You can also share this on the ‘Gram. Tag me in, keep the conversation going, and as I always like to say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
