As I was heading out to buy the SWTOR Collector’s Edition at my local GameStop, I noticed once again the shop next door, which is a beauty supply store. As always, there was a big sign on the front door saying that the store sold only to licensed cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians, etc.
It occurred to me that I don’t recall ever seeing another store that catered only to a particular profession. Like, I’ve never seen a restaurant supply store that catered only to restauranteurs, or a school supply store that you had to be a teacher to buy from. So…
Am I wrong and there are such shops, which I’ve just never seen (or forgotten that I’ve seen them?); or
Why are there cosmetologist-only shops and no other similar? I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that hair products and whatnot can be rather harsh chemicals and you need special training to handle them, but why would that stop the store from selling shampoo and funky combs to the general public?
There’s lots of restaurant supply stores that require a business license in order to shop there. I went to one once and boldly walked past the “greeter,” grabbed half a dozen of those awesome bottle openers that I had only seen in bars, and went to the register. She asked to see my business license or something and I just acted all sweet and innocent, and she gave me an “Everybody gets one” wink a la Family Guy’s Spiderman, scanned some generic code and let me leave.
As another anecdote, I bought some sheet metal from a metal supply place that usually requires business accounts for all customers. Their business was selling to other businesses, but they were nice and did an off the books cash sale because their accounting system wouldn’t let me buy the $20 in scrap metal that I wanted without a business ID of some sort.
My guess is that there are lots of X supply stores that operate on this model, but restaurants and hair car are too small time to set up a business account with every customer, so they just ask to see a license of some sort instead.
Lowes and Home Depot allow you to set up business accounts to get discounts on certain things, but they obviously allow civilians to shop there as well.
What I don’t know is why a license is required to shop at certain places. It’s not like a shopping club, where Costco wants to lock you into shopping with them, because they allow anyone off the street with a license, and it doesn’t prohibit you from shopping anywhere else.
But Sally’s Beauty Supply doesn’t have such a license restriction, according to their website. So why do some stores? And what do restaurant supply stores sell that’s so special?
Is it just an issue of not wanting to deal with consumers?
This is most likely - not set up to collect sales tax.
Also, if wholesalers sell directly to the public, they’re competing with their own customers, and the retailers who form the bulk of their business would likely take a dim view of that.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the makers of some of the high end hair care products have a clause in their distribution agreements that their products can only be purchased at salons, and they don’t want end users buying them wholesale.
As a state licensee in another field-I’m a low voltage contractor (home theater, security, automation, etc)-suppliers exist for the exclusive use of other trades. You just haven’t seen them because they tend to be in industrial areas rather than retail areas.
Very true (I used to work in the industry), though there’s an entire gray market of retailers who wink and look the other way (or ostensibly are “salons”, though they rarely, if ever, offer salon services, other than retail products).
As noted above, in most (if not all) states, you need to be trained and licensed to work as a cosmetologist.
And, some “beauty supply stores” which sell to the general public will have certain areas of the store / certain product lines which are only available to professionals.