Market Overview

The domestic hair salon and barbershop market (based on the sales at businesses) for FY2023 has been estimated at 2,092,000 million yen, 101.0% of the previous fiscal year. With recovery from the pandemic obvious in FY2023, consumer sentiment has expanded furthermore. Nevertheless, prices for commodities and services are rising continuously, which has led low-income and middle-income population to distinguish between what to spend lavishly on and what not, as they try to maintain their current standards of living. The destinations for consumer spending have started shifting to experiences with tourism on the top of the list, as restrictions to traveling overseas almost completely lifted.

In such a situation, many major leading companies in the hair salon and barbershop industry have set out to raise their service fees. Because every commodity price and service fee have been raised, there is a feeling of acceptance by consumers to such price rises at salons, shown by the increasing or returning visits by customers at hair salons and barbers for FY2023. Such a growth in the number of customers can be said as a promising status for the time being.

Noteworthy Topics

More Customers despite Rising Service Fees

Many hair salons and barbers have raised service prices in FY2023. The reason is rising energy costs and procurement costs for products and cosmetics necessary to offer their services. It is also a measure to improve benefits for hairstylists and barbers, a separate effort from securing manpower such as by shortening business hours and raising regular wages. For many salons, it has been the first time to raise prices since the last consumption tax hike to 10% in October 2019.
The measures have differed by each hair salon and barbershop. Some have shown cautious attitude to have adjusted the raise according to target customers by business forms of salons or have maintained the prices for specific service menus.
As a result, the number of customer visits, chiefly at major companies, has increased for FY2023. As COVID-19 having been degraded to class 5 under the Infectious Diseases Control Law, lifting the restrictions and increasing the outing opportunities for people, the spending for being neat and fashionable may have become prioritized.

Future Outlook

The domestic hair salon and barbershop market size for FY2024 expects a level-off at 2,093,000 million yen, 100.0% of the previous fiscal year. Of the total market size, that of barbershops is projected to be 594.600 million yen (100.0% on YoY), while that of hair salons 1,498,400 million yen (100.1% on YoY).
It can be said that people are now back to normal life from what they have been mandated to behave cautiously. Now that customers are rarely requested to put on face masks at salons, they no longer need to consider avoiding long-hour contact with other people and are becoming attracted to treatment that requires longer time. The challenges for growth hereafter for hair salons and barbershops are to offer added-value services.

Research Outline