Annual beauty and nail salon openings on the rise

Beauty and nail salons were among the fastest growing categories of retail businesses in 2017.

Last year saw 388 and 176 net openings (number of openings minus number of closures) of beauty and nail salons respectively, according to Local Data Company’s (LDC) Retail and Leisure Trends Report 2017/2018.

This means beauty businesses ranked in the top categories that opened the most stores between 2012 and 2017, with an increased rate of growth in 2017.

During this five-year period there were 1,766 net openings of beauty salons in Great Britain, 1,155 of nail salons and 1,186 of combined hair and beauty salons.

Even though the net change in the number of beauty salon openings dropped between 2016 and 2017 (from 435 openings to 388), the category rose to second place in the list of fastest growing in 2017.

Figures released by LDC in April showed that tanning salons were one of the few businesses keeping UK high streets afloat during 2017, while beauty and nail salon chains dropped by 3.82% and 12.50% respectively. However, this report only looked at chain businesses and found that the number of new high street chain store openings in total fell from 4,534 in 2016 to 4,083 in 2017.

Hilary Hall, chief executive of salon trade association The NHF (National Hairdressers Federation) said: “While this report provides evidence of the continuing growth and popularity of barbershops, beauty salons and nail bars, it does mean that these businesses face ever-increasing competition in a tough marketplace. To stay ahead of their competitors, they need to work harder than ever on their brand, on delivering an outstanding client experience, investing in their teams and keeping tight control on costs in order to turn a profit.”