For many beauty businesses, getting found by new customers still depends heavily on social media, referrals, and word of mouth. These channels can work well, but they don’t always make it easy for someone who is actively looking for a beauty service to discover, compare, and book a business. A beauty marketplace is one place where your customers can do all these.
Beauty marketplaces give customers an additional way to find businesses, based on their needs and location. At the same time, it gives beauty professionals and businesses another channel to reach potential customers.
Now, it doesn’t replace your social media presence or other marketing efforts. Instead, it adds another option for a customer searching for a service to find your business.
For salons and spas looking to attract new customers, build credibility, and simplify the path from discovery to booking, getting listed on the right marketplace (e.g., BeautyNow by Splice) can be a worthwhile addition to their growth strategy.
5 reasons why you should list your beauty business on a marketplace
1. Your customers are already searching for beauty services online
Not every potential customer starts their search by looking for a specific salon or beauty professional. Many start with a need:
- I need a spa near me.
- Where can I get my nails done on Lagos Island?
- Who does good lash extensions in Lagos?
These searches show that the customer already knows what service they want, and what they need to find the right business to provide it.
Being listed on a beauty marketplace gives your business another opportunity to appear in front of people who are actively looking for the services you offer. Instead of only waiting for someone to discover your Instagram page or hear about you from a friend, your business can be present where customers are already searching.
That’s an additional customer acquisition channel, and it can be particularly valuable for businesses trying to reach people who have never heard of them before.
2. You can reach customers beyond social media
Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms are excellent tools for showcasing your work, building your brand, and keeping your existing audience engaged. But they aren’t the only places customers look when deciding where to spend their money.
Social media often requires you to build an audience first. You need consistent content, engagement, and visibility before a potential customer comes across your business.
A marketplace works differently. Here, businesses are organised around services and locations, making it easier for someone with a specific need to find relevant options.
You don’t have to choose between social media and a marketplace. Your social media pages can continue to showcase your expertise and personality. At the same time, the marketplace gives customers another option to discover your business when they’re ready to find a service, compare their options, and potentially book.
3. Customers can compare your business with other options
When someone is spending money on a beauty service, they rarely want to book the first business they come across. They may want to check the services offered, compare prices, look at ratings, consider location, or simply see what other options are available.
That’s why being listed alongside other relevant businesses can work in your favour.
A beauty marketplace gives potential customers a structured way to compare salons and spas. Your business gets the opportunity to be considered alongside others offering similar services.
And while being compared with other businesses might sound like a disadvantage, not being present at all means you aren’t part of the customer’s shortlist in the first place. If a potential customer is already looking at several salons, you want your business to be one of the options they can actually evaluate.
4. You can build trust before the first appointment
Booking a beauty service for the first time involves a degree of uncertainty. Customers want to know that the business is legitimate, that it offers the service they need, and that their experience is likely to match their expectations.
A well-presented marketplace profile can help answer some of those questions before the customer ever contacts you. Your business information, available services, location, operating hours, ratings, reviews, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and other relevant details can give potential customers a clearer picture of what to expect.
This doesn’t mean that simply being listed automatically makes a business trustworthy. Your service quality still has to do the heavy lifting. But having accurate, complete information in one place gives customers more context when deciding whether your business is right for them.
5. It makes it easier for interested customers to book
Getting discovered is only the first part of winning a new customer. Once someone has decided they like what they see, there needs to be a simple way for them to take the next step — booking.
If a potential customer has to find your Instagram page, send a DM, wait for a response, move to WhatsApp, ask about available times, and go back and forth before confirming an appointment, there are several opportunities for the booking to fall through.
A marketplace with booking functionality, such as BeautyNow by Splice, can reduce some of that friction by bringing discovery, business information, and booking closer together. The customer can find your business, consider their options, and move towards an appointment without having to start the process from scratch across multiple platforms.
What to look for before choosing a beauty marketplace
Before signing up, it’s worth looking beyond the size of the platform and considering how useful it actually is for your business and your customers.
Ask the following eight questions:
- Is it built specifically for beauty businesses?
- Does it reach your target customers?
- Can customers search by service and location?
- Does your business profile provide enough information?
- Can customers see ratings or reviews?
- Is booking straightforward?
- Can you keep your listing up to date?
- What does it cost to participate?
Where BeautyNow fits in
BeautyNow was created to make beauty business discovery easier for both customers and business owners.
As Splice’s beauty marketplace, BeautyNow allows Nigerian beauty businesses to list their services and gives customers a dedicated place to discover businesses based on what they’re looking for. Customers can explore business profiles, compare their options, and move towards booking their chosen service.
For beauty business owners, that creates another channel through which potential customers can find them, alongside the social media, search, referrals, and other marketing channels they already use.
If you’re ready to give your business another way to get discovered, list your beauty business on BeautyNow now.
