The manicurist admits that he has finally passed a "good year".
Source: Lieyun Selection, text/Sheng Jiaying
Every time before the Spring Festival, Han Zhiqing, who works in Hangzhou, will find a nail shop on various platforms to complete the "KPI" of the annual Spring Festival nail art, but this year Han Zhiqing obviously feels that the business of the nail shop is more popular than in previous years, and the four or five nail shops on the homepage are all booked before the festival, and Han Zhiqing has to go to a farther and more remote nail shop to make an appointment.
This year, Han Zhiqing is not alone, on social platforms, nail shops queue for more than 5 hours, nail shops are full, nail shops do not accept airborne and other information abound, Xiaohongshu, there are more than 20,000 notes on the Spring Festival nail art.
Some manicurists said that this year's Spring Festival is the best holiday in their business in the past five years, doing nail art "super long standby" for more than 10 hours a day, and the person in charge of a nail shop frankly said that the epidemic almost wanted to close the door for three years, and the turnover of this Spring Festival has doubled several times, which makes her see hope.
Young people who love beauty are supporting a beauty economy.
"One person can't keep busy, re-hires a dismissed employee"
Song Zhiting has been operating a nail salon in Wuhan for six years, she has a loft apartment in the community near the business district, originally the nail shop hired two manicurists in addition to Song Zhiting, but due to the epidemic, offline business has been restricted, Song Zhiting's nail shop business has also deteriorated, in order to save money Song Zhiting fired other manicurists in July 2022.
"At the beginning, I opened the store alone, slowly accumulated word of mouth and customer sources, just wanted to expand the team, a big job, encountered the epidemic, repeatedly supported, this year's business is really not good, in the middle of the year two employees were fired, six years and returned to a person."
Although the Spring Festival has always been the peak season for nail salons, Song Zhiting expected that a person should also be busy, but this year's popularity is obviously more fierce than she expected.
"Since New Year's Day, many old customers on my side have successively asked me to make appointments, the time has been scheduled to Chinese New Year's Eve, our store is mainly to do the nearest business, but this year many new customers are specially from more than ten kilometers away, many stores are full."
Although the business has increased, Song Zhiting has also encountered new troubles: "The time to do nail art is actually relatively fixed, and I am a labor force, so I really can't do it." Song Zhiting decided to contact the dismissed employees to come back and "fight together for the Spring Festival". "Fortunately, everyone usually has contact, and they are willing to do this part-time job before the holiday, otherwise I really don't know where to recruit people for a while."
Song Zhiting told Lieyun.com that at present, there are more than 30 daily nail orders in the store, and the turnover is thousands of yuan per day.
Source: Photo courtesy of interviewee
Song Zhiting said that he originally planned to return the lease after the end of the year's rent and reduce the store to a point, "Originally in contact with a beauty shop, I rented the vacant space inside, so that the cost can save a lot, and I don't need to rent a whole loft alone." “
But the hot business of this year's Spring Festival made Song Zhiting shake this idea, "I haven't thought of a specific plan for 2023, maybe I will renew the lease." “
Not only has the nail business in Wuhan exploded, but the nail business across the country has almost all been full this year.
According to media reports, a nail studio in Jinan began to enter a busy year after the month of this year, and manicurist Zhang Lina worked almost ten hours a day, "the busiest time is a breakfast to last a day." ”
"Every year I went back early for the New Year, and this year I decided to stay"
"My small shop is opened in the backstreet next to Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and most of the original business is college students, although the Spring Festival nail business is very good, but college students have early winter vacation, and I go back to my hometown early every year for the New Year."
But this year, after the winter vacation of the university, Li Muzi received a lot of Spring Festival appointment orders, "basically concentrated in the week of the 14th~20th, all of them want to do the Spring Festival nail art." ”
"In previous years, there were also some Spring Festival reservation orders sporadically, but there were not many, and I usually did not take a holiday, thinking that the Spring Festival would still give myself a good holiday, but this year's agreed orders are at least 5 or 6 times more than in previous years, which is a considerable income." Li Muzi temporarily decided to stay in the store this Spring Festival.
Li Muzi told Lieyun.com that the daily business hours of his nail shop are from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and since this week, Li Muzi has extended its business hours by at least two hours every day, and he is busy until noon when he can't eat, and customers are one after another, but they still can't queue up the orders for reservations.
"There was even a customer who had a train ticket to go home at 1 p.m. that day, but the regular time was full, she was willing to come to the store at 8 a.m. to do it, and our store was charged an additional 50 yuan early or beyond business hours, and she readily agreed, dragging her suitcase early in the morning to come to the store."
But although Li Muzi has tried her best to schedule, she still refused many orders, and no longer accepted "airborne" and "appointments": "In the next two days, if you want to come to the store to do nail art, you can only queue up on the spot." ”
Li Muzi told Lieyun.com that in addition to manicure, there are other projects such as facial care in the store, but because he is really busy, Li Muzi suspended these projects before the Spring Festival, "After the year to compensate these customers with coupons, years ago still focused on sprinting nail art projects." ”
Like Li Muzi, there are many nail salons that have suspended other projects. According to media reports, Ms. Lin, who is engaged in the nail industry in Beijing's Xidan business district, even had to work overtime until the early hours of the morning, and also suspended the eyelash mending service she had been providing all along. Ms. Lin has been engaged in the nail industry for nearly ten years, and there are thousands of regular customers who have added WeChat. She said that in previous years, during the Spring Festival, the store's monthly income could reach six figures.
"Originally on the verge of bankruptcy, the fivefold increase in turnover gives me hope"
The nail shop led by Shu Zisheng was opened in a pedestrian street with a lot of traffic, but after three years of the epidemic, Shu Zisheng frankly said that the business in the store was bleak, in order to attract new traffic, Shu Zisheng has made a group purchase package for simple styles and monochrome nails in recent years. "Everyone is also fighting a price war, and at the lowest time, we played a group purchase price of 2.9 yuan for nail art."
However, it is often difficult for customers attracted by low prices to repurchase, "We mainly do membership business, but customers attracted by low prices are willing to recharge members." ”
Shu Zisheng said frankly that the nail shop was already on the verge of closing, but this year's Spring Festival gave her hope.
"Before the festival this year, I obviously felt that the number of people entering the store has increased, and the number of customers who are willing to queue has also increased, and in the past, if there were more than two people in the queue after entering the store, everyone was basically unwilling to wait, but this year it is common for many customers to wait in line for 4 or 5 hours on site."
Shu Zisheng told Lieyun.com that the flow of customers entering the store is now at least 40 people a day, and the online reservation quota was full as early as a week ago, and all of them are made with a deposit.
In addition to the surge in the number of customers, Shu Zisheng also said that this year, customers do more nail styles in this category such as wearing nails and patch nails than in previous years, "Many customers choose to make exaggerated styles this year, and these basically have a unit price of more than 300 yuan." “
Source: Photo courtesy of interviewee
With full customers and an increase in unit price, Shu Zisheng's nail shop has increased its turnover by 5 times compared with last year's Spring Festival, with a daily income of more than 10,000. "I originally planned to quit, but this Spring Festival has given me hope again, and this year can finally have a good year."
According to the 2022 Spring Festival data of the Meituan APP platform, its search volume for "nail art" has risen rapidly since the thirteenth lunar month, and surpassed "milk tea" to the top of the list two days later.
But this year's nail art people generally lamented that business is better than in previous years, "It is a busier and more profitable Spring Festival." ”
(All names in the text are pseudonyms)