Tracking hair products and retail stock in a salon

A salon can be fully booked and still lose money on stock. A pack of braiding hair given away without being charged. A tub of relaxer that finishes far sooner than it should. A popular colour that runs out on the Friday before a wedding weekend. None of these show up in a paper diary.

The fix is to treat the products you sell and the products you use as two different things, and to give each one a simple routine.

What is the difference between retail and back-bar stock?

Retail stock is anything a client takes home or pays for as a product: braiding hair, bundles, wigs, edge control, shampoo, beard oil, nail polish. Back-bar stock is what your staff use on clients during a service: relaxer, gel, mousse, shampoo from the wash station, acrylic powder, wax.

Retail stock is the easier one, because every unit should leave through the till. Back-bar stock needs a count, because nobody rings up "a bit of gel".

How should a salon track braiding hair and wigs?

Sell every pack of braiding hair, every bundle and every wig through the till, on the same bill as the service. Then the count goes down when it is sold, and the client's receipt shows what they paid for the hair and the service separately.

Braiding hair comes in many colours and lengths. Set each product up once, then add the colours (1B, 2, 27, 30 and so on) and lengths as variants. You can then see that colour 1B is selling fast while 613 sits on the shelf, and buy accordingly.

Most packs already carry a barcode. Scanning it is faster and more accurate than finding the colour on a list. For packs without a barcode, print your own price tag with a barcode.

How do you keep track of products used in services?

Count your back-bar products at the same time each week and compare what you used with the services you did. You do not need to measure every scoop. You need to notice when usage drifts.

Here is a worked example with relaxer, using example numbers.

• Tubs at the start of the month: 10
• Tubs bought during the month: 6
• Tubs left at the end of the month: 9
• Tubs used: 10 + 6 - 9 = 7
• Relaxer services done that month: 42
• Services per tub: 42 / 7 = 6

If last month you got 8 services from each tub, and this month only 6, ask why. It might be longer hair, a new stylist using more, or tubs leaving the salon.

• July8 services
• August8 services
• September7 services
• October6 services

Source: Example figures

Put the product cost into your service price too. If a GH₵60 tub does 6 relaxers, each service uses GH₵10 of relaxer. Our guide to pricing salon services shows how to build that into the price.

A weekly stock routine that takes 20 minutes

Pick a quiet time, such as Monday morning before the first client, and do the same thing every week.

1. 1Scan or count each back-bar product
2. 2Count the fast-selling hair colours
3. 3Compare with last week and the services done
4. 4Note any big differences and ask about them
5. 5Order what is running low

Count retail stock fully once a month. When the count and the system disagree, the difference is either a mistake or a loss. Either way, you want to know.

How do you stop running out on a busy weekend?

Set a low-stock warning on every product you cannot afford to run out of, at the level that covers your busiest weekend plus the time it takes your supplier to deliver.

If you sell about 30 packs of colour 1B on a busy weekend and your supplier at Makola needs two days, set the warning at about 40 packs, not 5. Check the warnings on Wednesday so stock arrives before Friday.

Buying from suppliers and keeping cost prices right

Record each delivery as a purchase from the supplier, with the quantity and the cost. Your stock goes up, the cost price stays current, and you can see what you spent with each supplier over the month. If a carton comes damaged or in the wrong colour, record the return to the supplier, so stock is right and you have a note of what you are owed.

Products with expiry dates, such as relaxers, dyes and some creams, can be recorded in batches with their expiry dates. The oldest batch is sold first, which keeps expired stock off your shelves.

Selling products alongside services

Product sales are income that does not need a chair. Clients often ask what was used on their hair or nails, and the best time to sell it is at the till, straight after the service, on the same bill.

Keep a small display near the till of the products your stylists actually use. Decide whether stylists earn commission on products they sell, and write that down: our guide to paying stylists covers the choices.

How MPOS helps

MPOS puts services and products on the same till and the same bill. Products can have variants for colours and sizes, barcodes for scanning, low-stock warnings, stock per branch, and batches with expiry dates sold first-expiring-first. Stock takes are done by scanning, deliveries are recorded as purchases from suppliers, supplier returns are recorded too, and you can print price tags with barcodes or import your product list from Excel. The stock value report shows what is on your shelves for any date.

Back-bar products are not on a client's bill, so keep them as stock items and use the weekly count above: the stock take shows the difference, and that difference is what you used.

For the rest of running a salon, read the complete guide to running a salon or barbershop. If your counts keep coming up short, the ideas in stopping stock and cash leakage in a mini-mart work in a salon too. You can start a free trial and import your products in an afternoon.