Nail Salon Owners realise they earning less then the minimum wage - so collectively decide to raise their prices

[cakeorwine]

Manicure price rise: Are you happy to pay more for your nails? - BBC News

This is a strange story - I have tun a business so I am more than aware of overheads and the actual cost per hour I made. And if you factor in admin time, as opposed to time spent with customers then it's even less. It's Business 101 - profit and loss, cashflow etc. Small business owners sometimes do earn less than the minimum wage when they look at the profits versus hours worked.

"Ms Jenkins did not realise she was making less than the minimum wage with her current prices.

"I was earning under £8 per hour, which was shocking to think that.
"The fact you're earning under minimum wage makes you quite upset.”
She said she was “nervous but very excited” to be upping her prices.
“It’s really beneficial that we are all raising our prices the same day and you know no-one is going to undercut each other."

"“It will vary between £5 and £10 per service," she said. "I’ve tried to keep it as low as I can because of the cost of living crisis.”

Many would say having your nails done definitely falls under the "luxury service" category, which she said she is aware of.

“We don’t want to put our prices up but we want to live again”.
Cost of overheads is one of the main reasons why Ms Jenkins, from Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taf, has decided to up her prices.
“No-one really understands the overhead part of a business. I’ve got three to four lights on constantly so my electricity bill is always higher. I pay extra council tax and I don’t pay [into] a pension because I can't afford to."

Many nail salons in Wales are going to increase their prices on the same day because "Ms Guy, from Liverpool, had the idea of the price increase day to give nail techs the confidence to correctly calculate their prices based on the cost of running their business."

"She did a study through her business and said it showed that on average its members were being paid £7 per hour.
"We know that the alternative is that we're not really making a profit and the fact that if we want to continue doing our clients' nails for years to come, it's a change that has to happen.”

Running a business is expensive - and setting your price right so you get a decent income and can make a profit is important.

I guess they were setting their prices depending on what other people were doing - without doing a cashflow analysis.

I worry that some might lose customers - and will lower their prices to get customers back.

I also suspect that if other small business owners did the maths, they are probably earning less than the minimum wage.

that's a really interesting point, because the devaluation of their labour is carried out mostly by other women.

Whatever next though? Bumping up everyone’s wages isn’t the answer to controlling inflation

I think its excellent that the lady has discovered this and acted accordingly, BUT she should really have done it before starting her Business.
I do SME startup mentoring and I always advise people to work this out and then decide if its worth starting a Business in the first place. It doesnt mean its not but SME owners do need to understand that they should include their time as a cost

Maybe there's a market for teaching business skills to some self employed people?

What would the going rate for that be?

There is and I have done it both myself and for a couple of Local Councils.
I have done some pro bono but my day rate varies from £250 to £400. I also worked for an organisation who was membership based and offered monthly sessions 1-2-1 for around £100 per month if paid in advance for a year.
The problem is that lots of "Business Coaches" offer this and have never run a Business before in their lives before becoming Coaches

I had coaching when I started mine - it was council run - and it was a few lessons / workshops - and the first thing was Business Plan, Cashflow and getting the price right.

yep, the art market has been a good study for years. Men do Art and are Artists. Women do crafts and have hobbies.

I wouldnt work with anyone unless they had a Business plan with all that in, or were at least committed to working with me to formulate one.
Many would say they didnt need a business Plan because they werent applying for loans but EVERY Business needs at least an A4 sheet of paper with a vague idea of WHY they were starting a Business, WHERE they were getting Customers from and HOW they would be servicing those customers and WHAT were their goals for the Business (short, medium and long term)
I sometimes work with GCSE and A Level Business studies Students and we always focus on those 4 areas

Where I used to live there were around 12 nail bars in the town, how do any of them have enough customers to keep running in the first place?
Good for the nail tech doing this but it's likely to get shut down as an idea now she's told the world about an illegal plan. Not the smartest idea, and not all companies will be on board anyway.
This going to go tits up which ever way you look at it.

But ultimately, people will pay what they can afford to pay.

Unless you are suggesting that people would pay more for getting their nails done if a man was doing it?

the cost of nails is hitting between £45 - £90 if you want designs. For that price I expect decent care of your actual which is often lacking.

plus it takes so long. losing an hour/ hour and a half. All of it got too much, so I’ve had to cut down.
I don’t think anyone begrudges a good nail tech their money

I suspect that’s where she is heading

Do citizens advice help with this sort of thing?

Nail services are definitely undervalued, there is a lot of training involved and hygiene (which is not followed in the aforementioned salons). Look at the cost of having semi permanent lashes. Lower costs and same time for the services yet lashes attract a far higher price usually circa £50 versus nails at circa £30 the prices need to increase.

It’s almost like women were also brought up in a misogynistic society and absorbed the message that women and girls are less worthy 😜

I don’t know that it’s that straightforward, but it is a fact that when negotiating men are more likely to ask what they want/what they think they are worth, while women will ask enough to cover their expenses.

Obviously this is a generalisation and not true of every individual but the topic is covered in a book called Women Don’t Ask (am too lazy to look up the authors rn).

Interesting to read all these comments vs the vitriol on the childcare provider costs threads.

possibly. That wasn't what i was saying though

People need childcare. People don't need to get their nails done. Plus there is a massive difference between 40 quid every six weeks and what childcare costs.

But i am firmly in the camp that thinks, yeah - childcare jobs are seen as women's jobs, and women's jobs on the whole aren't valued by society in the way they would be if men were doing them.

Hear, hear @Brefugee . See also: nursing and cleaning. There is also a theory that the increased lack of respect for doctors over the past decades is directly related to the increase in female GPs.

They aren't proposing a specific price, they're saying they will all charge a price to ensure they earn at least NMW, starting on the same day.

I'm sure the undercutting will recommended once they realise sales have dropped off due to lack of affordability amongst most of their clients

*recommence

I’m pretty sure there are quite a few jobs out there that if, when added the hours worked,
earn the minimum wage or less. Teachers are a good example of this. Add up the hours of planning, marking, parents evenings, concerts, clubs etc.

The salon I used to go to has closed, I went there for waxing also. I've realised that I can do my nails myself and I've ordered a laser hair removal gadget.

I was loyal to that salon, I'm not to any other.

Aren't plain gel nails costing £25-30 anyway? Takes about 90 mins?