Body piercing has been around for centuries as a form of self-expression, cultural identity, societal norms, and a way to improve overall body aesthetics. It is a fashion trend that continues to be popular in the mainstream fashion world to date, and rightly so.

With the growing demand for body piercing among individuals of all ages, it comes as no surprise that more and more people are looking to become professional body piercers. A professional body piercer offers a variety of piercing options, including the nostril, eyebrow, ear, tongue, and more.

If you're looking to open a piercing shop, there is a process you need to follow, steps that you need to take, and factors you need to consider. Considering the growing demand for professional body piercing studios and fewer places to get it done, it's a highly lucrative business option.

Steps to Opening a Successful Piercing Shop

Here are the steps to opening a piercing shop for beginners –

Learn The Body Piercing Skills

Before you think or plan to open a piercing shop, the first thing you need to focus on is gaining the necessary skills, knowledge, and training for body piercing.

Experience and skills play a pivotal role in achieving success as a professional body piercer and are a major factor contributing to the success and popularity of your piercing shop.

Get the necessary training, attend body piercing workshops, and complete courses on sterilization and sanitation techniques.

Conduct Local Market Research

Before you open a body piercing shop, it's important to understand the local market and the demand for body piercing services locally. Try to find out the latest design trends, what people are looking for, and the competition you'll be facing.

Carry out an in-depth market survey and research to identify the gaps in the market and find a way to make your body piercing business fill them.

Decide on the Niche to Concentrate On

Body piercing can be done anywhere in the body, the most popular parts being the lips, ear, and nose. However, it can also be done in other places, including the torso, navel, etc.

As a professional body piercer, you will eventually develop the experience to do body piercing anywhere in the body. Initially, though, you need to focus on specific areas to build confidence, gain experience, and create awareness about your body piercing services.

Some popular body piercing options to choose from are –

Nose Piercing
Tragus Piercing
Lip Piercing
Navel Piercing
Helix Piercing
Nipple Piercing
Tongue Piercing

Develop a Business Plan for Your Body Piercing Shop

Having a business plan is integral to the success of your piercing business. It helps pave the way for the present and future business activities. Having a business plan on paper is also a great way to get funds from potential investors.

A few issues that your business must focus on and address are –

Startup costs
Recurring costs
Body piercing options offered
Recruitment Plan
Pricing Strategy
Customer Profile
Profit Margin

Any business plan is dynamic by nature, and it changes depending on market trends, business growth, competition, and more.

Choose a Catchy Business Name

The name of your body piercing business should be catchy and yet something very unique.

You should also ensure that the domain name of the name you choose is available, as making a website is a key to the success of a business.

Find a Nice Location

Perform market research and find a location that's easily accessible and central to where all the action is. It is the key to running a successful body-piercing business.

As many customers would be coming in their cars, check the availability and ease of car parking. Find a retail space that fits your budget, is easy to locate, attracts higher footfall/walk-ins, and gives your business a great start.

Keep in mind that you're not only looking for people who're looking to get body piercings done but also customers who're just looking for piercing jewelry.

Register Your Business

Before you can start running your business legally, it's important to register your business. Talk to an accounting professional or a competent local authority to learn more about the various company structures and which one best suits your business.

The common business structure types are Partnership, Corporation, Sole Proprietorship, and Limited Liability Company (LLC).

Forming a corporation or an LLC protects you from being personally liable if your body piercing business is ever sued.

In any case, it's best to hire a registered agent or an accounting professional for in-depth business consultancy to land an informed decision.

Obtain Necessary Licenses & Permits

Running a body piercing store would need certain business licenses in certain states. You can check more about the state's licenses and permit requirements by visiting here. You can know more about the local permits and licenses required by –

Check with the local county, town, or city clerk's office.
You can also reach out to local associations listed in the United States small business associations' directory.

You must also have –

Certificate of Occupancy

It means that your store meets all the local zoning laws, building codes, and federal regulations. Typically, your landlord would provide you with CO if you lease your body piercing store.

Release of Liability

Businesses should get their clients to sign a release of liability to avoid potential lawsuits and liability.

Informed Consent Agreement

To further reduce any liability, you might want to provide your clients with a consent agreement. It is even more important for minors looking to get their body pierced as it requires a guardian's permission for any type of piercing.

Purchase Necessary Equipment

Another important aspect of opening a body piercing store has the right equipment and tools to perform various body piercing procedures.

As a professional, you also need to take special measures to ensure the complete safety of the customer, ensuring there is no infection once the piercing is completed. A few basic pieces of equipment you need for your store include –

Corks
Sterilized Piercing Needles
Ring Pliers – Closing & Opening
Forceps
Soap Solutions
Piercing Guns
Dermal Punch
Thread Tapers
Insertion Tape Sets
Thread Tapers
Plastic Wheel Gauge
Needle Receiving Tubes

You must also have fashionable piercing jewelry in stock for your customers.

Bent Barbells
Straight Barbells
Dermal and Surface Piercing Jewelry
Captive Rings
Circular Barbells
Labret Studs
Latest Piercing Retainers

It is recommended to do a local market survey and research to find reputable suppliers and distributors. Always remember, never compromise with the quality.

Also, it is critical to factor in the aesthetics, décor, and comfort of your body piercing store. You want to leave a good impression on your customers and ensure they have a great experience.

The customers must feel they're at the right place as soon as they enter the store, and it is their responsibility to make it happen.

How Important Is It To Find a Quality Piercing Supplier?

Finding a quality supplier for your piercing supply is a must because you're also offering piercing jewelry apart from just piercing services. Needless to say, it has to be high-quality.

Low-quality piercing jewelry would rust, discolor, and may even cause infection in most cases. Even if the jewelry causes the infection, you and your piercing shop would be blamed.

And no piercing shop wants that!

So, what are the qualities to look for in a piercing supplier?

Experience

By experience, it means you need to check how well-established the supplier is.

You can consult with the supplier, check out market reputation, and gauge the ability of the supplier to handle volume orders uninterruptedly. You can also check out the website of the piercing supplier to get a better idea of their offerings.

Variety

One other attribute of a quality piercing supplier is the ability to offer a wide range of piercing supplies, including the jewelry of various metals, designs, and budgets. You will come across customers asking for high-end luxurious piercing jewelry and customers looking for budget jewelry, and it's your responsibility to serve the needs of every customer equally.

It is only possible if you have a reliable piercing supplier that can cater to a broad range of needs through an extensive portfolio of piercing jewelry, supplies and related products.

Product's Quality

The quality of products you offer at your piercing shop directly represents your piercing shop. If the products' quality is low-end, cheap, and unreliable, it will impact your reputation negatively.

Check and vet the products of the piercing supplier yourself to ensure the products you source from the suppliers offer value for money to your customers. Whether it is piercing needles or piercing guns, or piercing jewelry, the quality should be at par with the high standards your customers have come to expect of you.

Pricing

While people don't mind paying a bit more for better quality products, it doesn't have to make them uncomfortable. Finding a quality piercing supplier who can provide piercing jewelry and products at a reasonable price is important.

It would help you offer better pricing to your customers and ensure you're able to keep a bigger margin without making customers frown upon the pricing.

What happens if you don't have a quality piercing supplier?

Without a quality supplier by your side, it would be difficult to maintain a consistent reputation in the piercing business. One of the key components of building a brand name involves offering consistency in customers' experience.

You cannot risk a customer having a good experience on their first visit and a bad experience on their second or third visit.

This is possible when you don't have a good piercing supplier for your piercing shop. If you don't have a dependable and quality piercing supplier, this is what could happen –

Without a quality supplier, you'll often be out of supplies and run the risk of losing or having to let prospective customers (and profit) go.
Depend on low-end and poor-quality products from time to time.
Inability to offer popular and in-trend piercing jewelry and supplies to your customers.
Inability to offer a wide range of options in piercing jewelry and products. Limited inventory is always a bad sign because customers always want "options" to choose from.
Poor-quality piercing jewelry may cause infection, and you don't want your customers to face that.
Volatile price fluctuation is a strong possibility when you don't source your piercing supplies from a trusted supplier. While the price may increase from time to time, you don't want it to be so frequent that your customers start thinking you're ripping them off!

Calculate The Total Cost of Starting a Body Piercing Business

Apart from buying the equipment and applying for licensing, one other major investment cost to factor in is rent/least cost of the store. If you can save the rent, a body piercing shop can start for as low as $5,000.

It's also important to have some residual funds for the ongoing supplies, rent costs, and other ad hoc expenses to cover the initial cost for the next few months.

Work Out a Reasonable Pricing

Once you're done with the steps mentioned above, it is time to set the pricing of your piercing services. You would have already had a price point in mind by this time, but it's important to deliberate specifically on pricing strategy.

It largely depends on how crowded the local market is with body piercing shops, how many body piercing shops are in the area your shop is located, and your competitors' pricing. Typically, the pricing of body piercing services ranges anywhere from $50 to $200.

Hire Skilled Manpower

The two most important factors that contribute to the success of a body piercing business is the customer satisfaction and safe, sanitized, and healthy body piercing services.

To this extent, it is essential to have the right people working for you. If you're a body piercing professional yourself, the onus is on you to constantly learn and upgrade your skills as the body piercing market evolves.

Hiring people with great body piercing and communication skills is essential, even if you're just an investor. The end game here is to keep your customers happy, and offering great service is one aspect of it. The other important aspect is to make them feel warm, welcomed, and taken care of.

Promote & Market Your Body Piercing Business

Every business needs to have a robust marketing strategy to reach out to its potential customers. Create a brochure listing your services, pricing, and the types of jewelry you offer.

Try to add something new and unique to the offering compared to your competitors. It is how you'll grab the attention of prospects looking for body piercing services.

One of the key components of your marketing strategy has to be online marketing, which includes social media marketing, digital marketing, SEO, and more. It is an ongoing process, and if you can't do it all together, you don't have to.

Remember, running a successful business has many moving parts, and it's important to take one step at a time, one day at a time.

Conclusion

Starting a body piercing shop is a great idea, but it needs to be realized with a solid business, marketing, and sales strategy.

For this to happen, you need to do in-depth research, learn more about the tricks of the trade by networking with people who're already in the body piercing business, get innovative with your pricing and offerings, and focus sharply on customer satisfaction.

Like any other business, setting up a body piercing shop is a time-consuming process, but once you're done with all the steps and have a thriving business you're passionate about, it will be the turning point you were waiting for.

Trust us, it's worth it!

How to Open A Piercing Shop? – The Full Guide