With the economy booming, the number of families/people coming under the ambit of higher income group is also rising annually. This group has affordability to spend on life styles and is quality and brand conscious. 

Like any other consumable and service, the space of beauty salon and wellness business is also growing at a fast pace. Though highly fragmented, the market has the presence of organized and unorganized players. Quality services are limited to 5 star hotels, Boutiques and Salons. There is a growing demand for branded quality services in this segment. The untapped potential in the market have given many players an opportunity to enter into beauty and wellness services. 

Present scenario:  

In beauty and wellness, India is far behind in global standards. Quality of services is yet to be standardized. The hygiene needs to improve a lot. International companies such as L'oreal and Schwarzkopf with their high decibel marketing efforts target elite class women. As an offshoot, it has opened hair fashion colors market in a big way. In the salons category, concept of franchising is slowly emerging for expansion purpose. 

Beauty Salon & Wellness business in India is estimated to be worth Rs.3000 – 4000 crores, out of which 35% of business is contributed by South India. According to analysts, it is projected that the industry is growing at a pace of 15% annually. 

As beauty business grows, sale of hair care products also witness surge in volumes and is currently estimated to be around Rs.400 crores. 

The business is segmented into hair care /coloring and skin care.  Operators likeSchwarzkoph, L’Oreal and Wella are the major companies in the hair care / coloring segment. Shannaz, Jassons, Lakme and Naturals are in the skin care category. 

The types of treatments and therapies provided by them include anti dandruff, anti hair fall, sebo control treatment(treatment done for oily dandruff), split ends controlling, dry hair and dry scalp treatments, smoothing treatments, spa treatments, acne treatments, skin lightening and pigmentations. Though specialist services are provided by majority of the players, basic services constitute 82% of their revenues and the advanced services form 18%. 

The industry is facing an acute shortage of trained and skilled manpower. The salary for a qualified hair stylist ranges from Rs.30000/- per month. Slowly hair stylist is taking a “celebrity status” as a result of which a trend of more young people taking it up as a lucrative career has just started. 

The organized sector with chain salons alone employ about 2-3 lakhs people.  Statistics are not available on the number of people employed by the un-organized operators. Sensing the shooting demand for trained manpower, companies like L'oreal and Schwarzkopf have started training of man power to be observed the industry players. 

“Naturals” - a leading player of South India:

 Naturals, started by Ms.K.Veena 7 years ago, with the idea to provide class-leading services in hair, skin and body care using natural products at affordable prices. Ever since its inception, Naturals has threaded the path of innovation by introducing many services for the first time, like., usage of fresh fruits facials and dry fruit & fresh vegetable for hair and skin care services, introduction of "Beauty on Wheels" a mobile beauty salon specializing in bridal make-up., launch of "dial a beautician" home service., introduction of temporary hair colors with computerized hair styling. 

With dual income and changing life style, Naturals identified emergence of a new trend and started setting up unisex salons from 2004 onwards and positioned it as “Family Beauty Salon”. The unisex salon offers many specialist services that include 21 different types of massages, exclusive bridal studio, M.A.C make up    (a service named after a reputed international beauty products company), reflexology (hand n feet massage).   

Naturals also tied up with big corporate like TCS, E-serve and Jet airways for offering counseling and special services to their employees. It also opened salons in the malls and IT parks etc., besides introducing a sports salon concept. Through a strategic tie-up with “Banyan” –a NGO, Naturals offer training to women who are ready to join the mainstream of beauty and wellness industry.

From being a single salon, over the years, naturals have grown into a chain of 12 branches across Tamil Nadu with employee strength of 180. It has a footfall of 20,000 people every month in all its salons put together, out of which 60% are women. As investment, it costs between Rs.40 lakhs and 50 lakhs to set up a high class family salon depending on the city. Naturals have recently opened its first unisex salon in Coimbatore at Race Course (Phone No: 0422–4393917).   

Commenting on the expansion plans, Ms.K.Veena, CEO of Naturals said, “We follow a simple but powerful model called “Branchising” where in we do all the start up work and identify a local partner for managing the day-to-day affairs of the salon, thus removing the risk of the partnership becoming vulnerable, besides creating a business platform built on mutual trust. Soon, we plan to add 14 more salons across the states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and achieve a landmark footprint of 200 salons in the next 3 years. We are also planning to start a training centre shortly”. 

To know more on Naturals, visit: www.naturals.in or email at : info@naturals.in  

Article and Picture by: K. Ramasubramanian