Opening your own piercing shop can be a major step forward in your career, but it can be a daunting task. From day one, you need to have everything on hand to deal with every situation you might encounter. With all the legalities under control and a space for your shop secured, you’re almost ready to open your doors. First, though, make sure you haven’t forgotten some crucial things.
Business Plan
Piercing professionals often have the mindset of an artist rather than a businessperson, and it can be tempting to move forward with no plan for attracting clientele, paying the rent when business is slow, or dealing with unexpected costs. However, that won’t help you in the long run. A business plan can help you focus the scope of your offerings, decide if you will bring on additional staff, and determine how much inventory you can keep in stock. Skipping this step can lead to failure even if you’re good at your job.
Sanitation Items
Customers and regulators will expect to see a clean shop with a focus on sanitation. Be sure to have an adequate supply of your favorite disposable gloves as well as surgical scrub. Items that may not immediately come to mind include dental bibs to help you establish a sterile field and protect clothing, gauze pads for bleeding, and rinse cups for cleaning small tools and rinsing before oral and cheek piercings. Government regulations in your area may require that you also have other sanitation equipment on hand.
Body Jewellery
A substantial part of your income will come from selling piercing jewellery, so you’ll need to work with one or more body piercing jewellery suppliers that can provide the barbells, studs, piercing retainers, and any other ear and body piercing jewellery you will need to keep in stock. You may want to have a range of matching necklaces, bracelets, and other pieces in your inventory to help increase sales to piercing clients. Body piercing jewellery suppliers can often provide sanitation supplies and may have tools too.
Piercing Tools
Tools of the trade include body needles in a variety of sizes, tapers for internally threaded body jewellery, piercing needle receiving tubes in a variety of gauges, septum forceps, dermal anchor forceps, ring-opening pliers, and similar basics. Depending on where you were trained and what services you plan to offer, you may have specific tool preferences. If not, you’ll have to establish preferences for brands and tool types. Be ready with extras of tools that break easily.
If you’re well-trained and have experience working at a shop, you should already have a good idea of what you need to do piercings. However, owning your own shop is different than working for someone else, partly because the responsibility for having everything you need in stock rests on your shoulders. Make sure you’re ready to help prevent embarrassment and lost business.