Giulia runs a salon in Bellinzona: two chairs, a part-time colleague and loyal clients who have been coming to her for years, between a colour and a blow-dry. She is good at her job, and she knows it. What kept her awake at night was something else: ordering, doing the maths, and knowing what really paid off.
One Saturday in September, mid-morning, it happened again. A regular client in the chair, the shade already chosen, and the right tube was not in the stockroom. "I was sure I had two left," she thought. She solved it by mixing another shade, but that evening, after closing the salon, she took a sheet of paper and wrote down three questions.
Giulia's three questions
- What does a colour service really cost me in product?
- How many tubes and developers should I order for a month, without running out and without filling the stockroom?
- Is it worth offering a new service, or selling more products at the counter?
A colleague in Lugano had told her about cliCHair. Giulia opened the site in Italian and activated her PRO account: free and with no obligation to buy. Once it was verified and she logged in, she found the tools reserved for salons on the homepage.
The first answer: the Colour Calculator
Giulia works with Grace Color by NIKA, in 60 ml tubes. In the Monthly stock tab she entered her average: about twenty full colour services a month. The calculation was ready: 1’000 ml of colour, that is 17 tubes, and with the 1:1.5 mixing ratio 2 bottles of Activators 1000 ml. Rounded up on the monthly total, not service by service.
Then, in the Service cost tab, she rebuilt the formula from the previous Saturday, with two shades and the developer. For the first time she saw, in francs, how much the product weighed on the price she charges her client. "Less than I feared," she wrote on her sheet.
The second answer: Quick Order
Reordering used to take her a whole evening, between price lists and phone calls. Now she does it between two clients. With the My products button she sees only what she has already ordered, with the quantity and date of her last order next to each line. She chooses the quantities and, with one click, the cart is ready.
The third answer: a new service and the counter
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays there was less and less work in the salon. In the Kits that pay off module, Giulia stopped at the Liss Komplex Pro Kit by Edelstein: 10 smoothing services per kit, an indicative service price of 380 CHF, about 120 minutes each. Even after deducting the full retail price of the kit (158.40 CHF), the margin before labour was over 3’600 CHF. Giulia knew well that this margin also pays for her hours, about twenty in the chair. That is exactly why she decided to offer smoothing on her quieter days.
Finally, the counter. With Earn on retail she chose a treatment she often recommends after a colour. An example with indicative figures: retail price 39.80 CHF incl. VAT, net margin of 11.02 CHF per piece. Selling 8 a month makes about 88 CHF a month, over 1’000 CHF a year, from a single product on the shelf.
What changed
The sheet with the three questions is still pinned next to the till, but now there is a number next to each question. Giulia orders once a month, knows what every service and every product she recommends earns her, and on Saturday morning the tubes are there.
"I don't work more," she says. "I work knowing where my money goes."
Giulia is a fictional character, inspired by common situations in Swiss salons. The figures are calculation examples, not a promise of earnings: you set the price of your services, and real margins depend on your salon's costs.
The tools in this story
- Colour Calculator: the cost of a colour service and your monthly stock
- Quick Order: the whole catalogue on one page, with your last orders
- Kits that pay off: what each service kit earns you
- Earn on retail: your margin on every product sold at the counter
Another salon story
Stories: Daniel and the Shelf That Finally Sells: how a salon owner chose what to sell at the counter, at what price, and got his clients coming back.
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