The Good and Not-So-Good at Sally Beauty
by BL Schultz
May 8, 2021
Sally Beauty is like Home Depot for your hair. Employees problem solve and recommend haircare and beauty solutions. Company management recently announced disappointing sales results. Queue the restructuring plan! Today’s focus is on the good and not-so-good at Sally Beauty. Other retailers in this series are Walmart, Walmart Online and JCPenney. Recall The Money Skinny™ mission is to save you time and money. We’ll review what is working well and improvement areas. You can decide if Sally Beauty is where you want to spend your hard-earned money.
Sally Beauty Employees are Top Notch
Employees are typically licensed cosmetologists. When a dye job goes sideways, Sally employees can talk you off the ledge. Tapping employee knowledge with an in-store consult keeps customers coming back. Tired of paying more than a hundo for salon hair color? Sally Beauty employees will give a You Can Do This pep talk. It really is like the Home Depot of haircare.
Great Product Selection at Good Prices
Specialty beauty items give customers another reason to shop at Sally Beauty. Selection is wide across the beauty spectrum and deep within product lines. Want purple highlights? Perhaps a quality flat iron? They sell every conceivable haircare product. Combining good prices with knowledgeable employees saves money by avoiding costly mistakes. Ion Color Brilliance Cream Hair Color, Ion Color Brilliance Liquid Hair Color and Ion Developer are permanent hair coloring products stronger than drugstore versions. Know nothing about developer? An employee can help.
Open to the Public
Once upon a time, Sally Beauty was a beauty supply store for licensed cosmetologists only. Now these stores are open to the public. No license needed. When asked if you have a Sally card at checkout, it’s for the card discount. Not to check credentials. In summary, everybody is welcome. Questions are encouraged.
Sally Beauty Club Card
The Sally Beauty Card is a hybrid between a grocery store shopper card and a warehouse club. The card is required to get slightly lower prices on certain items. It has a $5 annual fee. The five bucks might knock forty cents off a jumbo shampoo. Huh? With just one head, I only buy so many bigly bottles per year. Too complicated to figure out a payoff timeframe. Additionally, who wants to pay to have their meta data mined? For me, it’s easier to skip the card. One less business where I might fall into the Spend-to-Save Trap.
Sally Beauty Online
SallyBeauty.com is a good option in lieu of shopping at a physical store. Shipping is free for orders over $50. Sale prices apply to both the website and stores. Additionally, the website sometimes offers extra online discounts.
Sally Beauty Pricing Problem
Sally Beauty has a pricing problem. Sale data is not automatically incorporated into their Point of Sale system. Employees manually enter merchandise sale codes. The code the employee inputs triggers the sale price.
Pricing Problem Example
A $10 product is on sale buy-one-get-one free. Two ten-dollar products are scanned. The customer is charged $20 plus tax. Pfffft…wrong. First of all, the employee has to know that the item is on sale. Furthermore, he/she also has to know the specific code to trigger the correct lower price. Not good. Hard-code sale info into the POS system to automatically give sale prices. We know the sale codes are already in the POS system. The missing link is to automatically update the price when the item is purchased. It’s a management issue. No fault of the employee. Invest in your infrastructure, Sally.
Reverse Ripoff
My daughter bought a half dozen items at Sally Beauty. She wasn’t given the advertised sale price on three products. It’s the opposite of shoplifting. As a result, she went back to the store for a $12 refund. Twelve bucks? C’mon now. A refund is a hassle. Nobody wants that. Employees and customers don’t want their time wasted. Prices need to be as advertised. Needs improvement, Sally.
Protect Yourself from the Overcharge
- Limit purchases to a few items at a time. Pricing errors are easier to detect.
- Estimate your transaction total. Correct any overcharge during the transaction.
The Skinny
- Sally Beauty has a knowledgeable staff, great product selection and good prices.
- Skip the club unless you are a high-volume beauty product user.
- Protect yourself from the overcharge.
I feel I lost $5 “club” fee as my phone number entered wrong, so went online they sent a “coupon” which expired within a month .
I cannot visit store very often so feel robbed
too bad as I liked the products
GK
Hi. Thanks for the comment. That sounds frustrating. The online rep should have corrected the issue – plus given a coupon for the hassle. A better customer-focused solution is to empower store employees to fix problems at the register as they occur. Appreciate the input.
I think the discount card is so worth it. I’ve gotten free purses, tote bags, and make up bags and today my coupon gave me back $4.00 on a $20 purchase. I get discounts on all purchases and I do not buy in volume. Maybe average $10 amonth. SO WORTH IT
It says open to the public! Not so! I’m a licensed cosmetologist, but have let my license expire because I no longer work in a salon. I buy perms and color and shampoos and conditioners for me to use and on family members! I can’t buy a perm unless I’m “currently” licensed! People can ruin their hair more with color than a perm!! But unlicensed, you can buy color! Makes no sense! And when I go in to get the product I use on my hair, never there! So I now go to Taylor Maid Beauty Supply in Provo! Always stocked, and I don’t have to have a “current” license to buy perms! Which I have used for over 30 years! I also feel robbed, because I paid the fee also! Don’t do it! They’ll rob you of it because they don’t have what you need consistently or you can’t it it!
Ive always bought permsat sallys in the past.a couple months ago i tried to purchase a home perm and was told not without a beauty license.yet most web posts say you can buy anything there without a license
Not all the perms at Sally’s require a license to purchase. Just some of them. And for good reason. They don’t want someone that’s not licensed or knowledgeable about what they’re doing to ruin or chemically burn someone’s hair or scalp.
Appreciate the input. Thx!
I was in Sally’s and wanted to buy face shields. Why could the sales assistant not sell them to me. I thought they sold to the public. Annoyed.
The employee at Sally’s in Dubuque, Iowa charged $ .15 for my bag? What a rip off
I no longer shop at Sally’s beauty supply. I’m a licensed cosmetologist and the last two times I was there I never got a discount. Never going to happen again. Because I will not shop with you ever again. It’s been a year since I’ve walked in there, and I don’t miss it a bit.
Appreciate the comment.
I two days ago I was charged $274.99 for a Ion Super Charged hair dryer that I purchased in store, only to see it advertised for $249.99 online with free shipping. That doesn’t seem fair.
Appreciate the comment. Inconsistent pricing in-store and online is very frustrating at any retailer.
There are alot of items that are offered at a cheaper price online than in store. That’s one of the perks of shopping online vs in store.
I THINK YOUR BUY AND NO RETURN POLICY IS GOING TO HURT YOUR BUSINESS. I think you should post a sign on your window thats states your return policy. CLIPPER AND TRIMMER SALES THAT ARE FINAL SALE WITH NO RETURN POLICY WILL HURT YOUR SALES WITH BARBERS AND HAIRDRESSERS.
Appreciate the comment. Some items may be ineligible for return due to state/local regulations.