Price Attack salon owner Alex Evans loves the brand so much he has just opened his third franchise in Queensland, adding the Coomera store near Dreamworld to his Sunshine Plaza and Australia Fair outlets.
Alex is just one of five franchisees with multiple stores in the national chain of 65 outlets (four are company owned stores) and believes he’s found the right formula for business.
“There are many positive to franchising,” he says. “You have a lot of resources at head office who take care of so many aspects of the business: they look after all of your marketing; they’ve got IT personnel for support.
“There are a lot of people working on your business. They can solve those problems that you really don’t want to deal with at an individual level: they are a phone call away if say you get stuck with a computer glitch or ordering problems – they take care of it which is great support.”
The multi-unit franchisee is a busy man – he is also a part-time high school science teacher. During the pandemic he even tapped into his experience as a biomedical laboratory scientist in clinical pathology for Queensland Medical Laboratories and created hand sanitiser for his two salons.
“The world went crazy for a while there and suppliers just couldn’t even begin to envisage the madness of demand,” he says. “So, we made a batch of alcohol-based hand sanitiser similar to the World Health Organisation’s formula and added some coconut oil and mint essence.
“Not that it was something we were going to make to sell to customers, but it was reassuring to know we could help keep our clientele safe.”
The last year was a challenge for every retailer with the impact of Covid-related rules such as snap lockdowns and state-directed physical distancing. So with the pandemic still ongoing why open another store?
“The versatility of the business model, that’s what I like about it,” Alex says. “It’s like having two businesses in one: you’ve got the hairdressing side, but you also have the retail end, so if one goes up and the other goes down – they are supporting each other – you can work both sides.
“That dual model of business was never more evident than in Covid, we closed the salon for staff well-being, as well as other reasons, and the retail side of the business kept kicking. Even though the shopping centre was virtually empty, we were still getting customers coming in to see us and buy retail products.”
Alex says the brand’s product range and service aspect attracts a broad range of customers, with a core consumer prolfe of women aged between 22 to 50.
It’s also a resilient business because its in the service industry, he says.
“Customers like to come in and talk and touch and feel some of the products: they do like to chat to staff and talk about hair, their products and work out what’s best for them. They might look at a product online and do some research, but more often than not they don’t want to buy twice – so they come in to get an expert opinion from one of our hairdressing team.”
So why invest in Price Attack salons?
“People ask me this all the time and it really depends on what your personal investment strategies are,” Alex says. “Most of us own shares and have superannuation: I also own property, but that locks up your money and doesn’t give you great cash flow.
“If you wanted to establish something that gives you some cash flow, then a business model like Price Attack will work well because you can actually invest less to get higher returns, not without risk, but generally speaking you are going to get better cash flow.”