Beauty salons after the announcement of mobilization: customers are blown away by the wind

Ahead is a wave of bankruptcies and attempts to sell a ready-made business literally for a penny.

Yekaterina Maksimova

According to market participants, the fall in the industry in September amounted to more than 37%. Moscow, St. Petersburg and the regions that are geographically close to the zone of the NWO are the ones that "sank" the most. In other subjects of the Russian Federation, the fall is recorded in the range of 27-32%. The segment of barbershops, where the number of customers has decreased by 50%, is generally on the verge of extinction.

I just want to paint the roots

“After the announcement of partial mobilization, the people were blown away. In the All-Russian chat of market participants, colleagues wrote that in the first days - September 22, 23, 24 and beyond, there were not only fewer customers, but they disappeared altogether. They simply did not come. All entries were canceled. Only one out of 24 clients reached our salon at that time. This has never happened at all. There is a salon in St. Petersburg that has been operating since 1991. Its owner admitted that this was the worst September in her life, and there was no such fall even in the coup", - comments the Ambassador of the Association of Beauty Industry Enterprises, the owner of the Lucky Like salons and the Curlers hairdressing salons Lyalya Sadykova (St. Petersburg).

The founder of the network of beauty clubs Zoya Panina (Moscow region) also notes that, along with the outflow of customers, a decrease in the average check is also recorded. "The average check per client in the salon has become lower, people pay only for the necessary services. Or for those that calm", - Panina said.

Representative of the Association of Entrepreneurs of the Beauty Industry of Lipetsk and the Lipetsk Region Natalya Demko, who records a drop in demand in her region by about 30%, agrees: the remaining customers have turned on a strict savings regime.

“Everyone has a big drop. This is a fact. If we evaluate the segments, then the business segment has suffered the most. And these are women aged 30-45 years. They began to come less often, or come for discounts and promotions. a check of 5,000 rubles or more. Many people generally began to refuse to record and warn that they are not in Russia. The economy segment suffered less, but there are more men", - estimated Natalya Demko.

Another business owner, Tatyana Rogova (Rostov-on-Don), also confirms that people have begun to save money. Especially on complex coloring and expensive haircuts. “One tone, tint the roots… But they don’t allow themselves excesses,” says Tatyana Rogova.

According to her, beauty-enterprises that have been on the market for a long time and managed to acquire a high-quality client base are more or less surviving today.

“Here, I hope they will have at least such an even pi, without growth. Stagnation. And for those who have recently opened and have not had time to grow fat, it will be very, very difficult. It is expensive and ineffective to attract new customers. People under stress are difficult to plan. Again, depending on what audience. If they are designed for young people, then where are all the young people now? And people of middle age and a little higher still go to salons", - Tatiana Rogova specifies.

I will leave the salon in good hands

Market participants, after analyzing the numbers, came to the conclusion that they did not have such failures even during the pandemic. They fix the current decline from the indicators of the failed 2020-2021, that is, they do not even try to compare the current situation with the prosperous 2019.

Lyalya Sadykova believes that neither business nor customers have yet recovered from the shock that practically paralyzed the beauty industry in September. And in the near future, the industry is facing difficult times.

"The largest outflow of customers occurred in the business segment due to the mass departure of the solvent population from the country. Moreover, there is a decline in the economy segment, although this segment, on the contrary, always grows in any crisis. In the economy, 80% of customers are men And it seems that they are simply afraid to go to get a haircut. I emphasize: there has never been such a thing that the economy segment has sank, "explains the ambassador of the Association of Beauty Industry Enterprises .

The owner of the Mitch barbershop chain Dmitry Lavrov (St. Petersburg) adds: “We have a drop of about 50%. We work in the economy segment and our clients have no money to leave the country, they just sit at home. We see a crazy outflow of On weekends, if you really need a haircut, then they still somehow go.

In addition, the owners of the salon suddenly faced another problem: they literally lost the pool of their main masters in a matter of days. This is especially true for barbershops, where young men mostly worked.

"One of the owners of the network of barbershops, the main staff - 5 people, overnight simply confronted the fact: we are no longer in Russia, we will not leave tomorrow. And she has loans, rent. The team cannot be reassembled now. She understands that her business has collapsed and says: I just have to go out the window.And so it is with almost everyone, but barbershops are in the most terrible situation now”, - said one of the owners of the salon.

Interviewed market participants unanimously admit that beauty salons have already begun to close en masse in the country, many are trying to sell a ready-made business.

“There weren’t such a number of sales offers even during the pandemic. A ready-made business, which, for example, used to be sold for 800 thousand rubles, is now being given away with a 50% discount. some”, - continues Lyalya Sadykova.

According to her forecast, the number of bankruptcies will increase significantly in the industry in autumn. Another market participant suggested that about 30% of enterprises would leave the market by the end of the year.