Is Your Spa Boutique as Profitable as it Can Be?

Is your boutique piqueing your guest’s interest and generating a profit?  If you answered no, it’s time to assess your boutique’s effectiveness.  Calculate your profit per square foot and your volume per guest to measure your performance.  Have you done that lately?

A profitable boutique takes planning, managing and tracking. The following Merchandising 5-Steps will help you create an attractive and a profitable spa boutique!

1. Spa Boutique Inventory Management

Check your merchandising performance by running reports to identify your product mix performance.  These reports should be generated by product, by brand and by type to identify your best, medium and low sellers. Then, identify the most and least popular price point to determine how much your guests are willing to spend on products and merchandise. Who within your spa is responsible for inventory management and boutique performance?  Identify that person and outline their responsibilities.

2. Selecting your Merchandising Mix

Your merchandising mix should include items other than skincare, hair, and nail products.  Your mix should include items to continue the spa experience at home and other fun, unique products that guests don’t find in a typical retail outlet.

3. The Art of Merchandising


  • When you display spa products, attempt to tell a story.  Display the professional treatment and the home care that goes with it. Do the same for body products.

  • Use props such as decorative bowls, cups, trays, frames, accessories to add interest to the shelf.

  • Identify products’ natural ingredients & incorporate within the displays.  Natural ingredients and elements will add unique ambiance and great character to your display area. Include items such as leaves, botanicals, apples, pears, oranges, chamomile, lavender, herbs, etc.. This will add interest to the merchandise.


4. Point of Purchase Items

Place irresistible items near the check out area so guests can grab and add to their ticket. POP items need to be $20 or less.

5. Revenue Generation

Have you calculated your revenue per sq ft? Are you generating the amount you would like to generate?  If not, what’s preventing you from reaching your goal?  Let me know what some of your challenges are by commenting on this blog.

Here is what you need to track:


  1. Revenue per sq foot

  2. Overall retail revenue “volume per guest”

  3. Product performance

  4. Inventory cycle


6. Setting Your Spa Boutique Goals

Decide how much revenue you would like to generate from your spa boutique and expand upon the above 5-Merchandising Steps above.

Mistakes to Avoid:


  • Products behind locked doors

  • No spa boutique or limited retail area

  • No product display or visuals in treatment rooms

  • No pre-packaged items, POP & to-go promotions

  • Unorganized, too much clutter, or not enough products

  • Not managing your inventory properly


We appreciate and value your feedback on this topic!  I will be conducting a lecture about Successful Merchandising at the IECSC in Fort Lauderdale this fall and would love to hear about some of your merchandising challenges. Take few minutes and tell me your challenges.

Thank you in advance for your blog comments!