# Business development

Beauty Industry Mobile App: Development for Beauty Salon

Red Rocket teamJul 19, 20246 min read

Every business owner has heard and knows about the term «competitive advantage». These are those unique characteristics that help your company outperform your competitors in the market. In many aspects today, developing new web-based products helps businesses. Beauty salons, SPAs, hair salons, and other facilities in the beauty sector are no exception.

A little spoiler for you - custom beauty app development can boost your business to the next level. This applies to increasing the number of customers, improving customer loyalty, and much more. We, Red Rocket, are beauty app developers who well know how to create software for your company and your customers in the fastest way possible. In this article, you will learn more exact details about beauty industry app development. Have a comfortable seat, and we'll get started!

Brief Overview of the Beauty Services App Market

Year by year, the demand for beauty services is growing rapidly in all European countries and many states in the USA. At the same time, it is observed that among the clients of such establishments, there is a large percentage of men. This is due to the trend of always being beautiful and well-groomed, regardless of age, gender, or other characteristics.

Speaking of mobile services, there is also an increase in the number of customers, offers, and of course, the income of entrepreneurs. According to the reputable publication Statista, the number of downloads of mobile apps in the beauty sector has grown by almost 30% from 2019 to 2022.

Moreover, there are many different types of the beauty sector at the top. This can include nail salons, hair salons, spas and many others. What does this mean for aspiring entrepreneurs? These are great signals to start beauty service app development.

Must-have Features

Obviously, every app, regardless of the type of activity, should have its own unique features. However, there are features without which it is impossible to develop an app for the beauty industry. We have gathered all the must-have features for such apps.

Personal User Accounts

It is essential that users should be allowed to open an account where they will be logged in. This enables them to input their details and preferences, including their booking history, favorite services, account details, and private notes about the salon. The creation process should be seamless, and one should not need to input one’s full name, email, password, and phone number.

Booking Appointments

Convenience is another factor that will make clients book through a salon app. This is the ease of making a booking online. The app should enable customers to see the available time in a particular service, select their preferred time slot, make their payment if need be or pay later, and get a confirmation. Just imagine how convenient it will be for your clients to book beauty services directly from the mobile app. No more calls and unnecessary messages on WhatsApp Business.

In-app Payments

The consumer also expects that they will be able to pay within the application. Make it possible for customers to make secure payments using debit/credit cards as well as e-wallets such as PayPal or Apple Pay. A great solution is to introduce the ability to pay with cryptocurrency into the beauty app, as many people today prefer to use digital money instead of traditional money. What can be added in a matter of payments? Allow tipping staff just using the mobile application. Also, send receipts/invoices via email/SMS.

Reviews and Ratings

The inclusion of reviews on the site stimulates customers to give their opinions. They can rank services provided, friendliness of the staff, atmosphere, and can also provide additional feedback in the form of comments or recommendations.

Loyalty Programs

With regards to repeat orders, an app may employ features such as earning points/cash back for every visit, free service or discounted rates on specific events. This way, customers will be further incentivized to contact you again.

Augmented Reality (AR)

An AR feature will enable the clients to see how they will appear when they change hair color or use make up products before actually doing so. This makes decisions more easily accomplished and places more reasonable expectations on all contingencies.

What are the Revenue Models For the Beauty Mobile App?

For consumers, a beauty app means convenience, and for business owners, mobile apps provide revenue. Therefore, you need to first determine what revenue generation model your app will have. Here are what the most basic models are today:

Advertising. Advertising is the most popular way of generating revenue through a mobile application. This involves placing ads on the app and selling it to the various advertisers most of whom are in the beauty market. Beauty apps have a very high level of active users. Therefore, they can have stable and constant revenues with the help of paid advertisements and charging for the ad spots per each click, view or conversion.
Commissions. There is also another model that implies a commission for each booked service, and it is also rather effective for creating a beauty booking app. Here the commission is charged as a percentage on the fee when the users book or purchase beauty services from the app. Thus, when a user books a haircut, a massage, or a makeup appointment, the application cuts a pre-negotiated commission from the transaction cost. This way it is a great reason to order the beauty booking app development.
E-commerce. Finally, one more type of monetization, which can be used in the beauty apps, is the sales of cosmetics, skincare, haircare and wellness items, and other products through the app based on the ecommerce model. App owners can have their own stock and thus become sellers, or, they can collaborate with beauty brands and become digital sellers.

Actually, all three of the above-noted models are relevant and highly sought after today. Which one is more profitable for the business owner? The answer depends on the number of customers.

How Much Time and Money Does Custom Beauty App Development Take?

As with most ventures, creating a beauty app requires time and monetary resources, but the result could be a successful product. As we have seen, quality app development requires planning and realistic goals concerning time and money spent.

Minimal features that include appointment scheduling, information about the employees, and the list of services offered might take around 5-10 thousand dollars and 2-3 months of development. Cost and time increase for the apps with some of the extra features such as skin analysis using AI, the augmented reality trial of makeup, inbuilt e-commerce options, and different customized user interface designs. Several key factors determine how much time and money gets invested in a beauty app:

Platforms. Having a development for iOS and Android rather than just one will be much more expensive. Exclusively targeting the construction of tablets and smartphones will be used as well.
Features. Further features such as AI and augmented reality, geolocation functionality, and multilayered interfaces are much more complicated to design.
Custom designs. New themes take more time and resources than using templates in creating the documents. They also work with original artworks and animations, this also leads to higher costs.

We, Red Rocket beauty salon app builder will help you with the development of your required beauty software in no time and at an affordable price.

Popular Beauty Services Apps in the Market

Only real successful cases of beauty appointment app development can motivate aspiring entrepreneurs to create such software. In fact, today there are many bright examples of apps from the beauty industry.

Vagaro

This is a unique app that makes finding spas and beauty studios much easier for regular users. The app brings together the best businesses from the health and beauty industry to ensure easy booking and getting the desired service. It has a great integrated loyalty system that allows users to accumulate reward points.

StyleSeat

Style Seat has brought changes in the beauty industry in that their clients can search and book beauty professionals through the internet and a mobile application. It is possible for the professionals to build personal web pages where they can post specific fields of expertise and certifications. Customers have an opportunity to filter beauty professionals depending on their location, ratings, working hours, and fees.

DaySmart Salon Software

This salon management software designed for small and mid-sized salons also includes simple applications for Android and IOS. Employees are able to see schedules, manage inventory, and also find reports at their fingertip through the app.

Bridal Beauty Pro

Wedding is a special day in everyone's life when husband and wife of the bride want to look perfect. As the name may imply, Bridal Beauty Pro is only catered towards beauty professionals who deal with bridal customers. This might be an app that freelance hair stylists and makeup artists can make use of to get clients that are planning to have a wedding.

Conclusion

There are significant opportunities in creating a mobile app for the beauty sector since it will be of immense benefit to both the owners of beauty salons and their clients. It offers the opportunity to manage the day-to-day work of salons, decrease the no-show rate, make it easier to schedule appointments and receive payments, reward clients and gather information to improve the service. For customers, an app ensures that they are afforded an easy opportunity to book appointments, make payments, and access various promotions.

When planning to develop such an app, it is advisable to work with a competent app developer who fully understands the requirements needed to develop the most suitable app for a beauty business. We, Red Rocket beauty salon app developers have vast experience in developing apps for beauty salons and other related businesses. We provide end-to-end development services, which include customized and innovative, mobile application solutions to the clients to enhance their operational efficiency.

Frequently asked questions

What types of beauty apps are there?

Currently, there are several types of beauty apps that exist in the market and which can be classified in the following way: cosmetic services, skin care, hair care, SPA salons, plastic surgery, etc.

What is the target audience for beauty apps?

The beauty app customer base is very large. Applications in this industry are designed for females and males in need of cosmetics, skincare, hair treatment, and hair salon providers. Although young female adults in the 18-44 age group are likely to rely on these apps most frequently, anyone concerned with beauty topics can benefit from such apps.

How can a beauty app help boost your monthly income?

The beauty apps help justify value to small businesses like salons to help them generate more appointments and, therefore, generate more revenues. From the analytics, it is possible to identify which services are the most popular and when it is least busy, thus, staffing can be aligned properly. The convenience ensures that customers return more often. More frequent customer visits are another advantage brought about by convenience. By incorporating e-commerce into the revenue model of your beauty app, you can significantly increase your profits. This will allow you to be a unique company that both provides beauty services and sells related products.

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