Sell three £18 retail products a week and, at a 50% margin, you’ll make £1,404 in profit over a year. You don’t need to add another appointment or find more room in your diary.
In this example, that’s worth more than a £2 price increase or one extra tan a week. It’s also around five times the saving you’d make by buying solution 20% cheaper.
Retail is often overlooked, even though it can make a noticeable difference to the value of each appointment.
That doesn’t mean salon owners are lazy or bad at selling. For many, recommending products simply feels uncomfortable. They don’t want useful aftercare advice to sound like a sales pitch.
Before looking at that, let’s start with what the numbers could mean for your business.
What different levels of retail sales are worth
An £18 soufflé sold at a 50% margin gives you £9 in profit. If you’re doing twelve tans a week, here’s what the numbers could look like:
| Sales a week | Clients buying | Profit a year | Added to each tan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 in 12 | £468 | +£0.75 |
| 3 | 1 in 4 | £1,404 | +£2.25 |
| 6 | 1 in 2 | £2,808 | +£4.50 |
| 12 | Everyone | £5,616 | +£9.00 |
The last column is the most useful because it shows how retail affects the value of every appointment.
Your profit on a £30 tan is about £11.30. If one client in four buys a product, retail adds an average of £2.25 to every tan you do. That’s a 20% increase in what each treatment earns, without raising your price or adding another appointment.
At twelve tans a week, one sale in four means having a simple product conversation with each suitable client and making three sales.
How retail compares
Here’s what happens in the same salon, based on 624 tans a year and one change at a time:
| Change | Worth per year | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| Sell three items a week | £1,404 | No additional appointment time |
| Put your price up £2 | £1,229 | Explaining the increase to clients |
| One more tan a week | £1,038 | 25 minutes of additional treatment time |
| Find a solution 20% cheaper | £267 | Changing the product and possibly the finished colour |
In this example, retail produces the largest annual return without taking up another treatment slot. You still need to buy and manage the stock, but you don’t need to find another client or create more space in your diary.
Your clients may already be buying aftercare elsewhere
Clients who pay for a professional tan usually care about maintaining the result after they leave. Many will already be buying moisturisers, gradual tans and other aftercare products from shops or online.
UK self-tan sales grew by 43% in the year to April 2026, according to Circana. This doesn’t guarantee that every client wants to buy a product from their tanning professional, but it does show that demand for self-tan products is growing.
There are two other useful findings. 70% of salon clients who don’t currently buy products from their salon say they would like to, according to Phorest Consumer Insights 2025, based on 716 salon clients in the UK and Ireland.
Mintel also found that 58% of UK self-tan users tried a brand they hadn’t used before in 2025. This suggests that many clients are open to trying something new when the recommendation is relevant to them.
A treatment gives you a natural opportunity to offer that recommendation. You know which products were used, you can see the client’s skin and you can explain how to look after the finished result.
Why recommending products can feel uncomfortable
For many tanning professionals, the difficult part isn’t knowing what to recommend. It’s worrying that the recommendation will sound like an attempt to make another sale.
That concern is understandable. Research into how people respond to advice has found that they are more likely to question it when they suspect the person giving it has something to gain.
Across five experiments, Haran and Shalvi found that people discounted advice more heavily when they suspected intentional bias than when they thought the advisor might simply lack knowledge. In other words, people were more concerned about honesty than expertise.
This wasn’t research into salon retail specifically, but the principle is useful. A client may trust your knowledge while still wondering whether a recommendation is for their benefit or yours.
The answer isn’t a more polished sales pitch. It’s to make your recommendations personal, honest and easy to decline.
How to recommend products without sounding pushy
Be prepared to say when a product isn’t needed. If a client’s skin isn’t dry enough to need a particular product, tell them. Honest advice builds trust and shows that you’re not recommending something simply because it’s on the shelf.
Mention aftercare during the treatment. A product introduced for the first time at the till can feel like an add-on. Mentioning it when it becomes relevant during the treatment feels more natural and gives the client time to think about it.
Connect the recommendation to the client’s result. Instead of saying, “We’ve got a lovely soufflé,” explain why it could help them.
For example: “The skin around your knees is a little dry, so moisturising there may help the colour fade more evenly. The soufflé I used today is good for that, but any suitable moisturiser will help. Would you like me to show you the one I used?”
Keep the range simple. A small range of products you know well is easier to explain and recommend. It also means less money tied up in stock that may sit on the shelf.
Let clients try the product where appropriate. If the texture or scent matters, offer a tester or let them look at the product while you explain it. It’s easier to make an informed decision when they can see what they’re buying.
Where to start
Choose your best-selling product and recommend it to the next twelve suitable clients. Mention it during the treatment and connect the recommendation to something you’ve genuinely noticed about their skin or aftercare needs.
Keep a note of how many clients you speak to and how many decide to buy.
If three clients buy, that suggests the product could be worth £1,404 a year at the same weekly sales rate. Continue tracking it beyond the first fortnight so you can see whether that result is consistent in your salon.
These figures are a model, not a forecast. The 50% retail margin and twelve tans a week are assumptions — margins realistically run 40–60%. Substitute your own figures to see what retail could be worth in your business.
