Three in four salon owners buy their treatment devices alone, and the person whose opinion counts is one suppliers never meet

Every device brand in this industry has a view on how a salon owner buys, and most of those views were formed on the supplier's side of the table, so we went and asked the owners themselves. Salon and clinic owners across Australia and New Zealand walked us through the most recent treatment device they brought into their business, from the moment it first seemed worth looking into through to how the machine is performing today, and the picture they painted is of an owner making one of the largest purchases her business will ever see with almost nobody beside her.

Three in four owners (75.0%) told us that nobody else had a real say in the final decision or could have stopped it. The idea was usually theirs to begin with, with 61.4% saying it was entirely their own idea, and the same share did all of the research themselves. When you picture the owner sitting across from a rep with a quote on the table, it is worth remembering that she has most likely raised the idea and done the homework herself, and that she is weighing a decision of that size with nobody whose job it is to check her thinking.

That changes what a good sales conversation looks like. A rep who has been trained to find the decision maker and line up the stakeholders will usually find there is nobody to line up, and what helps an owner carrying the whole decision on her own is the information that lets her make the call with confidence, in a form she can sit with after the rep has gone.

She is also making that call with very little to compare it against, because 38.6% of owners seriously considered only the device they ended up buying. For close to four in ten purchases there was no shortlist at all, and the first credible conversation an owner had was very often the one that ended in a sale. For a brand that gets in early that is an enormous advantage. For a brand that arrives second, the door has usually closed before it knocks.

Where someone else's opinion did carry weight, the most common answer was a spouse or partner outside the business, chosen by 25.0% of owners, ahead of a business partner at 18.2% and a lead therapist or senior team at 15.9%. That is the person a supplier is least likely ever to meet. The conversation that tips a purchase is often happening at the kitchen table after close, with someone who has never seen the demo or met the rep, and who forms a view on the whole thing from whatever the owner can repeat back to them.

That partner is also the person most likely to ask the question the owner is least able to answer, which is what the machine will cost to keep running. Only 13.6% of owners were told upfront what servicing costs once the warranty ends, while 45.5% had to ask for it or never found out at all. It is the cost that keeps arriving long after the excitement of delivery day has worn off, and it is the one owners were most often left to chase.

For anyone selling devices, those numbers are a brief for 2027. An owner deciding alone, with little to compare against and a partner at home asking what it will cost to keep running, is best served by a supplier who puts the whole cost of ownership in writing before she has to ask for it, servicing after warranty included, in a form she can take home and talk through with the person whose opinion she trusts most. The brands that do that will be the ones whose numbers get repeated at the kitchen table, and in a market where four in ten owners never look at a second option, being the brand whose numbers can be repeated is worth a great deal.

If you own a salon or clinic, the takeaway is simpler. Ask what servicing costs once the warranty ends, in writing and before you sign, and give yourself at least one other device to compare it against, even when the first one feels right. If there is someone at home whose opinion you value, bring them into the conversation before the deposit rather than after it.

Everything in this article comes from the free excerpt of What Salon Owners Want: Devices Edition, which has three of the headline findings and the chapter on who else is in the room in full, with every figure behind it. The full report follows the purchase from the first spark of interest through to how the machine is performing today across eight chapters, with every chart and its commentary, and it is $300 on its own. You can also join Inside Industry Intelligence for $99 a month or $1,000 a year, which brings you this report along with every other report we publish and every members-only Intelligence article as it goes out.

Source: What Salon Owners Want: Devices Edition, Inside Industry, 2026.

Base: 150 salon and clinic owners.