So I thought today y’all may like a little ride along with me while I go pick up my kids since I’m gonna be in the car for what feels like forever and I don’t have anybody to talk to. So I have that only child syndrome where like I need to be on the phone whenever I talk.
But I realized last night that my video on why we don’t sell products online got muted. And I fidgeted around with it a little bit. If anybody knows how to get the original sound back, that would be amazing. Cuz I thought that it was just the music that got muted, but it was like they took all the sound off completely. So it’s just a beautiful video of me talking and he can’t hear anything. So I thought that I would reread it. So you’ve got this lovely lighting that’s happening right here, and you’ve got my beautiful sunglasses and half of a steering wheel. But join me while we ride to go pick up my kids. So I just wanted to redo a video on that and just kind of explain it because I do get a lot of comments on like, where can I buy this product? And the first thing that I want to say is please support your local tanning salon. Like that, if you stop watching here, like that is really the general gist of this video is please support your local tanning salon.
But let me kind of explain everything that we have to go through. What we don’t have to go through anything, but in order for us to order from our distributors, the distributors on behalf of the manufacturers, send us agreements that we have to sign to continue to order products. And what those forms state is that if we sell online, it never drops below MSRP and we’re not allowed to ship. So I can list products online, but you’re gonna get them at MSRP. So anytime you see a listing, one line that’s for less than MSRP or less than what you’re tanning salon is selling, that is more than likely not a little bit.
I forgot how to talk for a second. More than likely not a legit tanning salon selling it to you or a legit wholesaler because we’re not supposed to do that. And if we’re caught selling that stuff online, so Salon Traffics opened up an Amazon storefront and started listing all the products that we had and just move big volumes. Devoted Creations is gonna reach out to me and they’re ask me to stop and they’re gonna tell me that I can never do it again. And if I continue to do it, then I get essentially blacklisted. Like no distributor is allowed to distribute to me anymore. So that’s like, really that’s the general gist of it.
Now let me explain a little bit because I see this in a lot of like Facebook posts and comments and stuff like that. My salon has it like so expensive. They probably don’t have it that expensive. Okay, like some salons, yes, there are a huge markup on the products and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, we’re not marking up any different than what Old Navy up marks up their clothing.
I mean, it’s the same type of margin, but you also have to realize in that margin, we’re paying out our employees commissions and their pay, like their hourly pay, comes out of those margins and our electricity Bill and bonuses and new equipment, cleaning supplies, like all of the stuff that’s needed to run your EFTS may cover like the basics. So if you’re on some type of auto draft membership, that money is automatically allotted to paying the bills. So it, I’ve got one customer who every time she pays some things, I have to have set up on my account because I do custom spray tanning. Every time she buys something, she thinks I’m the owner of my salon and I’m actually just the manager. My mom owns it and she always makes this like little snide comment because she pays $95 a month, which is thank you, like don’t give me wrong. Thank you. Like you’re on our highest tiered membership and you support us and I appreciate that. But every time she signs, she goes, well, I pay you enough. I’m not gonna tip you. And if like, please don’t make this awkward. Also, you’re not paying me. Like, even if I was the owner of the salon, like your 95 a month is going to words, lamps and AC and paychecks and literally everything before it even gets to the pocket of the owner.
But our EFT budget or like what we bring in as far as our memberships go, that always goes towards like our high bells, like our rent, our electricity, our AC are stuff, cleaning solutions are restocks on product, whatever else. And the money that’s not left over or the money that we don’t have is filled in by the, basically the markup, as you call it, by the products. And we make, I would say probably like if you were to have a little pie charts of where our income comes from, we are roughly like 33% our memberships, 33% product and 33% something sunless tanning, like walk in tanning. So you have to realize like whenever you take away 33% of our income, were really struggling at that point.
So I always, I’m a firm believer in supporting small businesses, supporting local business. This, I’m a huge proponent for that. A good example of that is the way that the Tyler Diva Wash is trending on TikTok right now. And look, it smells fabulous. It works beautifully, don’t get me wrong. But I also know that Messena’s Pharmacy down the road from me also sells it. And Messena Farm. Messena’s Pharmacy only has one location and they are the sweetest people. And you know what? Every employee that they have, they like really hit the nail on the head. So instead of me ordering it from the influencer who is on TikTok, who’s promoting it, who’s saying everything absolutely right. And I’m sorry that I can’t support them. I am gonna go to the small storefront that is five minutes down the road from me and I’m gonna shop local because you know what? It’s as much as that time and energy as that influencer put out on TikTok. And while I do feel bad for not supporting them, I know that it’s more important to my local economy to support that local business. So I want those girls and those guys to still have a job, even if I am only by buying a 20 dollar bottle of laundry detergent from them, that markup for them is going towards employee pay or going towards their overhead or whatever the case may be.
So that’s one of the huge reasons that we don’t sell online is because I want you to support your local slot. The distributor, the manufacturers of the products want you to support your local salon. They don’t want you buying off of these big box stores where if it is a known salon or it is somebody who’s getting the products through a distributor, has already signed something saying they won’t do it. So it’s probably not a legit person at that point or a legit wholesaler at that point, you’re probably looking at somebody who is getting it on sale from their local tanning salon at 50% off and then marking it up slightly just so that they can make a little bit of a profit for shipping and whatever else. So that’s, I mean, really to me, that’s huge. But I also, I did reach out to Devoted Creations a couple of months ago whenever I first posted the video similar to this. And I ask them like, why do they not want to sell direct to consumer? And their answer was one sentence. We want the customers to support their local salon, period. So, eh, cuz I asked him, I was like, why don’t you all create a storefront and then you can let your, the people, the TikTok influencers, you know, self through there. And they’re like, we want people to support our local salon.
Whenever I was in Missouri, I had the same conversation with all of the manufacturer. They want people to support their local salon. They are not okay with the online selling of their products. There are some products that you can buy direct from manufacturer, like hemps is a great example of that. You can go to their website, you can buy almost every single product that they have except for the ones that they make specifically for the hair industry and the tanning industry and whatever else. But that’s not their bread and butter. That’s not send evolutions bread and butter. Their bread and butter is their tanning lotions that you can only buy through salons. So I guess I’m not yelling at anybody.
There’s not anything in particular that prompted this TikTok. I just wanted to say this again, that without supporting your local salon, you won’t have a tanning salon to use your tanning lotions at. And we’re not being greedy by marking up our products and up promise you, because I’ve worked plenty of retail jobs, the markup on these lotions is no more of a percentage than what you’re getting whenever you go to the gap or Old Navy or, I don’t know, I don’t, Lulu lemon on the cost of their products yet, y’all will go there and you shop all the time and you support them and you don’t complain about the prices. So just shop local, keep your local tanning salon, you know, up and running and let them know that you love them. I absolutely have no problem with you saying Sarah from Baton Rouge at Salon Travis, you know, told me to buy this. I don’t have any problem with that. And you know what? And if you wanna support us, we have t shirts that you can go to our website, you can buy a Salon Tropics T-shirt. We get a little bit off the top on that. It’s through bonfire. You can choose a design that you want. There’s lots of color options if you just wanna say thank you, Sarah, for putting out the content, you are more than welcome to another way and fight your friends to follow me so that I can hit 10 k so I can start monetizing on these videos. But at the end of the day, I want you to support your local salons, so do the lotion manufacturers. And honestly, you should want to do the same. But that was all. I love y’all and y’all have a great day.