This morning after going to the bank to finalise the loan on the mortgage I had enough time to quickly go and have a haircut. I had to go and draw some money from the ATM as I do like to tip the barber and these days I rarely carry any cash.
An empty to let shop now barber number 7 in the area another one upstairs in the same chopping center.
This empty shop opposite the new barbers is also full of barber shop fittings like barber chairs etc so maybe he has more plans in the area for more outlets. When I was walking past someone opened the door and I got a glimpse of what was inside. This was a sweet shop about 3 months ago and has been empty since. Maybe he gets good deals on rent because the spaces he uses are fairly random and would only suit a specific client or business.
When I popped into the local shopping center I was a little amazed to see another barbers had opened up this week which would bring the total in our small area around the center to 7 barbers. The map does not show all of these outlets, but there is another two opposite Elegancia is where I normally have my hair cut.
With this new site now open what got me and made no sense is the owner is the same for at least three of these barber shops and has now got me thinking he probably owns them all.
10 years ago we never had a specialist male barber in the entire area and had to pop into a ladies hair salon if we needed a haircut. There was no male grooming with the threading and waxing of ears and nostril hairs and this is all very recent.
There has to be a demand for this as men also need their hair cut but never imagined having 7 barbers in walking distance of each other being a great business model. I only have my haircut when I really need it and so maybe once every 10 weeks or so will get it done. There is no booking required and this is on a walk in basis and the wait is maybe 15 minutes at most before you are taken care.
This would be an empty property if no barber was here a sit is too small and not exactly ideally located for any other business.
Whilst sitting in the barbers chair I was trying to run some numbers factoring in a few quiet days each week and the numbers are not that bad considering no one else has really specialised in the male grooming needs.
The barbers are open every day of the week and are paid on a commission basis on the number of haircuts and turnover they generate. The owner of all the barbers shops is covering all his costs like rent and electricity within the first half of the month and the rest is pure profit. If he owned or rented bigger premises then the rent would be far higher so he runs and owns 7 barbers on a shoe string budget using rented space at dirt cheap prices.
Elegancia was the very first one to open up and the one I still use today and the owner was my original barber who know seems to own them all. All the barbers are foreign from North Africa and some do struggle a little with English. My son asked for a shave and ended up with some beard that had been shaped and styled which was then clean shaved eventually.
The business model is a little strange yet it seems to work very well because he has expanded his coverage in the area and has the monopoly. I would say this set up he has is actually a stroke of genius renting spaces no one else would want getting a favorable rate whilst servicing the male needs in the area.
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