Our approach to e-commerce is to leverage existing solutions, like Magneto and Shopify, rather than forcing spas to change their system.

Online product and gift card sales kept revenue coming in when businesses were forced to close. The spas which were most successful were the ones that ran reports on past service and purchase history identifying specific customer preferences, such as product brands, to personalise offers rather than sending generic promotions to their entire customer base.

This combined with personalised at-home packages and maintaining strong local customer databases saw many spas increase retail sales. They saw tens of thousands added to the bottom line and, in some cases, six figures’ worth of revenue.

In the future, we’re looking to deepen our integrations with Magento and Shopify to facilitate upselling in a spa. For example, giving therapists the ability to make a recommendation in-room, load a shopping cart and have the retail items shipped to a client’s home versus having them pack the items in luggage and face hassles at customs.

With Mindbody’s spa software, spas can sell gift cards, service credits, memberships and link to their online product stores. Mindbody also has an integration with Shopify that allows spas to enter products, manage all inventory in their spa software and report on both in-store and online sales.

With many spas closed retail became a critical revenue stream. Owners had more time (and financial incentive) to focus on setting up an online retail presence. Some spas put together relaxation kits and even offered virtual services and workshops, teaching clients how to relax at home using their retail products. While this was an important source of revenue, even more important was the loyalty it built with consumers looking to support small businesses.

In total, revenue from online product sales increased by 19 per cent.

Zenoti offers a gift card webstore for sale of virtual, branded gift cards and Shopify integration for product e-commerce.

Our spas promoted gift card and online product sales heavily during lockdown.

Many operators offered a percentage of the gift card purchased to be donated back to the employees. These promotions in support of providers, became a great industry rallying cry, fuelling online gift card sales – they accounted for 12-15 per cent of sales prior to the pandemic and peaked at 60 per cent during COVID closures.

Our active Shopify customers saw e-commerce retail sales increase up to 10-fold, bolstered by virtual events that extended that experience with retail offerings. Examples included at home mani/pedi workshops and step-by-step facials all with e-commerce products for purchase immediately following.

The pandemic pushed Ez-Runner’s spa operators to fast forward their digital strategy with good results. They saw an uptick in skincare sales online, some by nearly 50 per cent, in 2020 compared to the previous year.

We partner with e-commerce platform EKM to enable operators to sell retail items online while also being able to use their existing competitive merchant agreements.

Functionality includes free templates, the ability to chat online and to optimise via Google. We also offer a 28 day free trial.

In addition, Ez-Runner partners with various distribution companies to make it easier to get products to customers.

The ability to sell products online was a great option for spas during lockdown and gave them a way to continue trading. Operators had some great strategies in place such as self-care marketing campaigns.

Spa Space is a new software platform that’s been in development for several years. It’s currently being beta tested and we expect it to launch with a number of spas imminently.

The main functionality of the software is to allow spas to fill their empty treatment rooms with guests who have been matched with expert therapists recruited and compensated by Spa Space. But when it launches, there will also be an app which guests can download and use to purchase retail items that can be shipped directly to their home, allowing the facility to earn retail revenue without having to stock their own shelves.