Keeping Your Business Resilient Through the Cost-of-Living Crisis
Published May 23, 2023
Are you aware of the ways that Vagaro can support you during the cost-of-living crisis? Everyone’s doing their best to look after the pennies so that the pounds can look after themselves, but as a business owner, money troubles can threaten your whole livelihood. Vagaro has a few handy tactics to help keep your business afloat in tough times.
How is the rising cost of living affecting beauty & wellness businesses like yours?
The Office for National Statistics reports:
- Energy bills increased by 80% in October 2022. This has increased running costs of salons, studios, and any space that beauty & wellness professionals use for their business.
- 25% of businesses reported lower turnover at the start of 2023.
- Inflation is at an all-time high, (recorded at 9.2% in February 2023) which will increase the cost of goods and services.
- Private renters saw an increase in rent prices of 4.4%.
This all means the cost of running your business is at an all-time high, and you’ve probably had to increase the prices of your services to try and compensate.
What’s more, available spare cash for your average customer will be much lower, with inflation rates reportedly the highest they’ve been in 40 years at 10.1% in January 2023, and 9.2% in February 2023. With little increase on wages, people may not be able to afford the luxuries that they once did.
How does Vagaro help you navigate this?
Vagaro is an all-in-one business solution, for managing online bookings, payments, rent collection and more. It makes for the perfect software for your salon, spa or fitness & wellness business that is also the most affordable on the market.
Plus, we have a whole host of features available that come free with your subscription. This includes, the free Marketplace, 1,000 marketing emails per. month, appointment reminders & notifications sent in a variety of ways to encourage more commitment to appointments, all-in-one payment solutions and so much more.
Get Featured for Free You can get found & booked with our free Marketplace. Currently in the UK, you can boost your business to sit right at the top of searches for free. This will help to make you more discoverable to new customers than ever before!
- With the Vagaro Calendar, you can encourage people to book appointments a few weeks in advance and then send them reminders to help them stay committed.
- Tired of no-shows and last-minute cancellations? We understand this can be detrimental to your earnings, so Vagaro can help you request a percentage of the price of the service at the time of booking. These deposits help protect your revenue, & what’s more, the waitlist function can help you easily fill those gaps in the diary.
- For businesses who want to implement memberships or recurring payments, you can do this with Vagaro too. This is all managed from within your Vagaro Pro account.
Secure Transactions Vagaro also offers an all-in-one payment processing solution. These transactions are perfectly safe & secure and further protects your income from any security or data breach risks. Let Vagaro handle the small things, while you focus on what you do best.
Automation Saves Time & Time is Money
Businesses worldwide are moving forward with technology and automation as a way to save time and money. We can offer you automated payments for rent collection, paying your employees, but also automated emails and reminders for your customers. You can give them a custom look and feel with a great range of templates on offer, and you can also choose exactly how your customers get notified.
As much as we are an intelligent software, people remain at the heart of what we do, and there will be someone at the other end of the phone 24/7 should ever you need them. This customer support comes free of charge with your subscription.
There are a variety of marketing tools available with your subscription to Vagaro. Our Customer Success Team can walk you through how to seamlessly take advantage of all the software can do for you. A couple of examples include, email and text marketing, so you can stay on the forefront of your customers’ minds and market any offers & discounts. When you advertise a Daily Deal with Vagaro, you’re 4X more likely to be booked! You can also use the Forms feature to collect customer reviews, which helps to build trust.
What do the business owners have to say?
Abbie Miranda owns Beija London, a bra fitters and lingerie company. She says:
“We’re having to respond to the rise in cost of living quickly, which is tough as a business owner. Part of our strategy is to schedule more fittings as it’s guaranteed revenue. Managing appointments and ensuring that the calendar is full on the days we are available makes it easier to manage our time. Vagaro has helped us trial early-morning & late-evening appointments to see when the most popular and profitable times to be available are. You can see all the relevant information on a dashboard and guide your decisions based on that.”
Dan Glass, owner of Dan’s Barbershop London says, “The cost of staffing, personal costs and business costs have all gone up. We are trying to optimise some of those costs by running an efficient, busy business, while also not spending money where we don’t have to. We’re working hard on allocating our budgets into the right places, whether that’s with a better value-for-money booking system, social media ads, or being able to offer discounts. Vagaro allows us to manage our diaries and be as efficient as possible. It allows us to communicate with clients, track business costs with stock inventory, and we can see in real time what clients are looking for and what they’re able to spend money on.”
He goes on to say, “We were able to use the Daily Deals section to offer a January discount when wallets were particularly tight after the festive period. Then we used the email function to email all our customers, informing them of this special promotion. As a result, January ended up being a busier month than December, which in this industry, is almost unheard of.”
Extra tips & tricks?
Never underestimate the power of social media, as it is a highly effective, cost-efficient way to showcase your work and market your business. Both Beija London and Dan’s Barber shop do a great job at marketing their businesses through the power of social.
Beija have their very own brand ambassador who create short–form video content posted as reels on Instagram & TikTok. The videos aren’t heavily sales-focused, but are humorous & engaging, drawing you into the brand and making people want to be part of their community.
Dan’s Barbershop utilise their beautiful photography skills to showcase their own products sold in their online store with Vagaro. The Online Store is a great way to secure a second revenue stream for your business alongside services. A picture says a thousand words, so plant a FOMO seed in the minds of your customers with some images of what you do best!
Looking after YOU
We hope this information is helpful to you, but if you still need some extra support, there is government relief schemes available for businesses to use.
Remember, our industry is resilient, and there will always be a need for it. This too, shall pass—with the right tools at your side.
If you’d like to learn more about how Vagaro can help your business, then please get in touch.