Salons lost the retail battle. The fight for new clients has already started

Guest post by Nigel Price. Nigel has spent his career in the professional salon industry and now works with salon owners on growth.

Over the past year I have been working closely with a number of salons, looking at one simple question. Why are so many good salons finding it harder to achieve good profits than they used to?

What I have found is fascinating and slightly worrying, and it starts with a story most of us in the industry know all too well.

What really happened to salon retail

For years we watched salon retail sales decline, and we blamed the obvious culprits. Amazon. Discounting. Manufacturers selling direct. Clients buying online.

But those were symptoms, not the disease.

Take Lookfantastic. Twenty years ago few salon owners had even heard of them. Today they sell millions of pounds of professional haircare every year. They did not invent better shampoos. They did not employ better hairdressers. They did not convince anyone they suddenly needed different products.

They simply became better than salons at three things: being found, building trust, and making buying easy.

In other words, they mastered Google. Online retailers did not take our retail sales because they sold better shampoo. They took them because they understood how people search, how websites persuade, and how Google decides who gets seen. Salons never realised they were competing against businesses that had become experts at online marketing.

History is repeating itself, this time with services

Today the same thing is happening with salon services.

Every day, people near your salon search Google for balayage, hair extensions, curly hair specialists, bridal hair, colour correction, and "best hair salon near me". Every one of those searches forces Google to recommend somebody. One salon wins the click. Everyone else is invisible.

So ask yourself three questions.

First, how many new clients did Google send to your salon this week? Do you actually know?

Second, if somebody searched for your best service today, would your salon appear, or would Google send them to a competitor? (If you test this, use an incognito window so you see what a potential new client sees, rather than results shaped by your own history.)

Third, what happens when someone skips Google altogether and asks ChatGPT to recommend a salon?

The next shift is already here: people are asking AI

Search itself is changing. Increasing numbers of people now ask ChatGPT things like "who is the best salon for balayage near me", and Google now answers many searches with its own AI Overview before anyone sees a single website link.

Here is the important part. These AI tools do not know your salon exists unless the internet tells them. They build their recommendations from the same raw material Google always has: your website, your pages, your reviews, your visibility. A salon that is invisible on Google is invisible to AI too, and this time there is even less room at the top. An AI answer often recommends just one or two names, not a page of ten.

The salons that get their online presence right now will be the ones AI recommends. That window is open today.

"But we get most of our business through recommendations"

When I raise this with salon owners, I usually hear the same three replies. "I've got a website." "People know where we are." "Most of our business comes through word of mouth."

And that is exactly why the problem goes unnoticed. The biggest danger is not having a poor website. It is believing your current website is good enough.

Recommendations are wonderful, but they only reach people who already know someone who knows you. Google reaches everybody else, every single day. The salons that understand search, websites and online persuasion will keep attracting more enquiries, more consultations and more new clients, while others quietly wonder why growth has slowed.

The industry name for all of this is salon SEO, but do not let the jargon put you off. It simply means making sure Google understands exactly what your salon does, and trusts you enough to recommend you ahead of the salon down the road.

Twenty years ago we watched internet businesses take our retail sales, and most salons never saw it coming. This time we can see it coming. That is the difference, and it is a genuine opportunity for the salons that act on it.

Find out where your salon stands

The good news is that this is fixable, and the first step costs nothing.

Frively offers a free Online Pulse Report: a straightforward review showing how visible your salon really is on Google, what your website is doing well, where you are losing potential clients, and the practical improvements that would increase enquiries and bookings.

It may confirm everything is working. It may reveal opportunities worth thousands of pounds a year. Either way, you will know exactly where you stand.

Request your free Online Pulse Report and find out what Google is telling new clients about your salon.

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Nigel Price has spent his career in the professional salon industry, starting at Wella and then for many years at Laceys. He is the author of "Insider Secrets for Bigger Salon Profits", a step-by-step workbook designed to help salons grow and build strong profits. He now helps salon owners understand how clients find, choose and book salons online.