seasonal?

[stormgale89]

Hello, I am still a student and just got a position in a salon. The salon owner told me that their business was pretty seasonal with it being slow in January after Chrismas (everyone is) and when school starts in the fall. Is massage like that? It seems like sort of a maitenance thing but it is also a luxury, so I don't know if it's regular or not. I was thinking if many of my clients come from salon business that maybe it will be the same for me. I keep forgetting to ask my instructor. Thanks for the input

 

[Lynci]

I think that depends a lot on your location. In Daytona Beach we have a lot of "snowbirds" who leave during the summer and spend holidays up north so those times are pretty slow.

 

[Tucker M]

I live in a college town, so summers are super slow. Even my regulars drop off (kid's out of school, vacations, etc). But, I pick up again around September and I am always busy after Christmas with Gift Certificates. Things go great until about May. It's a never ending cycle.

 

[Pompal 09.]

Well, I live in a tourist area, which does quite well with even winter tourism, as long as the snow flies...

So, we'd be fairly busy through until just before Christmas, the salon portion would be busy until New Years and then January would slow down a little. But the month I always found was really dead was March.
So, eventually I figured out that was a great month for me to take a vacation. LOL
I think it depends somewhat on your client base and why they're coming to you for massage. If it's more about pain relief that pampering... they'll probably try to be more regular.
Some of my clientele came from the salon (mostly tourists... a very few hair clients who would come for massage randomly)... but my regular clients were the ones I was able to "drum up" myself by talking to chiropractors and other health professionals, and leaving brochures and business cards in their office. Because they didn't have room for me in their office, they didn't mind referring to me at the salon... and it made their patients happy to have them refer them for massage. (And it helped bring more money into the salon, so they weren't going to complain... LOL)
And if you're going to have slow months... and you've been warned by the salon when those tend to be... you can always plan some kind of special promotion during those months to see if it can drum up a few new customers!

 

[a-z]

I find January DEAD. I am in Sydney, Australia, so the holidays (Christmas/New Year) and Summer all come together. People just get too social, too many BBQs, too many parties, too many offers of boats on the harbour, too many going away on holidays (it's the end of year school holidays too). I'm not in a tourist area. Dec/Jan is just all party party party, no "me time" or looking after that problem shoulder or whatever,
If it wasn't for Christmas gift certificate sales in December, it would be a very thin time. (Gift certificates don't get redeemed in January, they wait till after the kids are back at school etc).

I do find pregnancy massage seems to be a good back up - there is always someone looking for a pregnancy massage, even though the peak season for that tends to be Jul-Sep for all the September babies September is peak baby time in Sydney (9 months after party party party Dec/Jan ).

 

[Bad Ash]

Spa is very seasonal

January is dead -- everyone is broke after overspending for the holidays, so you will get a few folks redeeming their holiday GCs right away, but not many.

Summers are slow as people are often on vacation.

 

[Miss 6]

At our clinic, the 2 weeks following Christmas are always our busiest time! We sell on the average of 500 gift certificates during the month of December. It seems like people who receive them either call immediately to schedule or hoard them until right before their expiration date.

I'm sure this varies location to location.

I think for us, between the gift certificates, our regular clients being totally stressed out from the holidays and people who are down visiting relatives for the holidays (I'm in Florida so many people like to come down here during the winter) we stay extremely busy in December and January.

Angie