Trends in the tattoo & piercing business
Which trends in the tattoo & piercing business are actually having a lasting impact on our lives? For sure: REACH has really shaken up the tattoo industry and still hasn’t let go of most of us. However, we believe that the changes brought about by REACH are manageable compared to far more fundamental changes that are hardly noticed.
Because we should be clear about one thing: there will always be an ink (or jewelry) that can be delivered into the skin with needles of whatever kind. But without customers who provide their skin (and their money), nothing works in our industry.
This may sound trivial, but the European history of tattoo culture clearly shows how much our business is subject to the fluctuations of fashion and social norms. In short: it is not the Echa, parliaments or associations, but…
The customer calls the shots
And we have seen massive changes here in recent years:
- away from the supplier market towards the customer market
- Away from statement and demarcation towards trend and lifestyle
- away from the underdog and into all social and income strata
You may find that as you like. But if you want to make it to retirement with your profession as a tattoo artist and piercer (and beyond, see our infoletter “And then the revolver at 70”), you will have to deal with such changes.
Facts and figures
Based on some statistical evaluations from various studios, we would like to illustrate some trends in the tattoo & piercing business. First of all, it should be noted that the following statements cannot be generalized – there are always individual exceptions – but clear trends can be identified across the board.
Waiting tolerance is falling
This is an obvious trend: The greater the offer, the less willing people are to wait for their tattoo/piercing. For example, while customers in our studio had to wait an average of around 150 days for an appointment in 2016/2017, this lead time has now shrunk to around 60 days:
Of course there is a certain spread here: with our Tara you have to wait about 1 year and in the Fineline area about 4 months. Nevertheless, the average for all artists is around 60 days. This trend is even more evident in almost all the studios we evaluated.
Accordingly, compared to 2016, our calendars are only completely filled approx. 7-8 weeks in advance (booked hours per week):
As I said, we see this trend in almost all studios, but there are definitely exceptions. Here is an example of a studio that manages to fill the calendars of even just-finished apprentices many weeks in advance:
Be special or be nice
A full calendar is child’s play if you’re hip/hip and have amazing tattoos on your skin. But what’s hip today is yesterday’s news tomorrow. That’s not a good recipe for making it to retirement: Crafts change, fashion changes, your own health changes.
Good service has always proven to be much more reliable and consistent here. This is precisely what characterizes the studios whose booking rates stand out positively in an overall comparison. And the more you are in trendy segments (fineline, realistic, piercings, etc.), the more important this issue becomes.
The world is online
One factor in this context is certainly accessibility. And this is where online booking plays a crucial role. We now receive over half of all inquiries about new tattoos online:
And if you look at the time window in which we receive the requests, it becomes clear that this workload is not feasible or healthy in the long term in analog or manual form.
Interestingly, this trend can also be seen with vouchers. All of the studios we analyzed offer their customers both online vouchers and high-quality printed products. Nevertheless, there is an unmistakable trend towards convenient online vouchers that can be bought quickly on December 24th or on the way to a birthday and can even be given as a gift via WhatsApp:
Make me happy, then I make you happy
Incidentally, vouchers are always a good indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty. After all, someone is spending money to send their friends/family to you. There is hardly a better way to express satisfaction.
Good service, from start to finish (!), also has the effect that customers like to come back more often:
And it is always much easier (and cheaper) to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. In addition, good service also has a noticeable effect on the conversion rate, i.e. what percentage of inquiries actually have their tattoo done by us?
In a nationwide comparison, there is a clear spread depending on the style and price offered. Styles with strong competition (fineline etc.) or higher prices inevitably lead to a lower conversion rate.
Since good advertising is expensive, while good service is free in many respects, it should be obvious where a studio’s priorities should lie.
Still a young business
All statistical surveys in our industry over the last 20 years have repeatedly shown that the main target group is under 25 years old.
It is correspondingly easy (and flattering) to be hip in our industry if you belong to this target group. If you ride on such a wave of success and don’t use it to build something that sustains you, and from the customer’s point of view you belong more to the age group of parents, you don’t deserve pity in old age.
It should be noted that the average age of tattoo artists is 37 and Tara, as the owner, offers almost exclusively Asian large-format tattoos, yet almost half of our customers are under 25.
And even if older customers may have more money, younger customers up to the age of 30 still account for more than half of our sales.
This means that even we as an established studio (and artists) are dependent on young customers to pay our bills.
So if you think you can spend your whole life doing what was popular in your youth, you will definitely be shipwrecked.
This and much more on the BMXnet
If this infoletter has piqued your interest and your curiosity for more, we can recommend our presentations at this year’s BMXnet in Berlin (Sept. 7-10, 2023). We look forward to seeing you there.
Yours
