Pulse November 2017 | Page 61

30 percent of your revenue, so make sure it’s worth your while,” said Cabral. Amazon doesn’t. One thing Amazon doesn’t have is the ability to create an experience. search Experience According to Cabral’s expertise, the A9 algorithm (Amazon search) is a very powerful, but a secretive beast that takes into account your listing text and bullets (search terms), along with recent sales velocity, listing conversion rate, image count and reviews. It weighs all of these factors together across their vast network of products to arrive at a final, ordered list that is presented to users. Ratings can make or break your product listing on Amazon, so it’s vital to acquire as many positive reviews as possible and prevent negative exposure. All an Amazon algorithm can do is predict; spas can seduce. Expand what you do best to the shopping experience. When a customer comes in for a treatment, they are coming to your spa for your expertise. Make sure to empower therapists into recommending the products they used in the treatments to their clients. It’s not about selling in the spa; it’s about professional recommendations. Your therapists went to school for this, and are constantly up-to-date in the latest products and technologies. Ensure they use that knowledge to their advantage by recommending retail products to clients. An easy way to do this is by creating a custom “report card” for each client. Therapists can use this to inform them of the products used in their treatments and recommend products in your retail space that are right for them. If a client presents the report card in your spa’s retail space, they get a special discount. This kind of personalized service is not offered through Amazon. amazon for spa Managers A considerable percentage of a spa’s revenue should be coming from retail. But how do you compete with mega- sellers like Amazon? The answer is, you don’t. To fight this battle against Amazon, spas need to use what they have; this means spas need to have whatever November 2017 ■ PULSE 59