Would Beauty Supply Stores Ever Carry Hair Care Books?

Namely such books as "Ultra Black Hair Growth" (Cathy Howse) or "The Science of Black Hair?"
Why or why not?

As beauty supply stores are in the business of providing products for people who usually care for their own hair, it would make the most sense for them to sell hair care books. Those books share techniques and some recommend products that most BSS carry. It would be a win-win for the BSS and the customer.

you know negrums don't read and if you wanna hide something from them you put it in a book! That would be a great idea though, whether they were online or brick/mortar.

southerncitygirl said:

you know negrums don't read and if you wanna hide something from them you put it in a book! That would be a great idea though, whether they were online or brick/mortar.

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Lol negrums.

I wonder if they'll lose business by doing so

Perhaps that's why I've never seen books there

newgrowth15 said:

As beauty supply stores are in the business of providing products for people who usually care for their own hair, it would make the most sense for them to sell hair care books. Those books share techniques and some recommend products that most BSS carry. It would be a win-win for the BSS and the customer.

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Actually, BSS traditionally supply to salon professionals (hence Sally's discount card for licensed beauticians). Since the surge of DIY haircare happened recently, it became profitable for these places to allow us to shop there. I remember a time where there where certain items at Sally's that you could only buy with a beautician's license. Because of this, it would not be in their best interest to provide the kind of books the OP describes. The most I have ever seen sold in the way of books in these stores are hair cut gallery type books--the kind that you see in salons where you pick out the hair cut you want and they give it to you. Maybe that will change as more people ditch the salon for DIY, but it will still take some time.

I think these would do well in the BSS. Most shoppers in the BSS are regular consumers who would be attracted to these books (and titles like The Science of Black Hair may appeal to professionals as well).

They'd also be a good product since they would sell for a relatively higher price vs. the amount of space they'd take up. They would be complimentary vs. competing products with what they already have (people can only use so much shampoo or conditioner, but books would be a new category that people can buy in addition to the other products, not instead of them). They would make a good gift, and the BSS has few gifty products (eg. bath kits, nail art kits - you aren't going to buy someone a box of relaxer or hair color as a gift)- adding another gift item would attract gift dollars that would otherwise go elsewhere. Plus, as these books encourage DIY, it would theoretically increase the amount the customer is spending at BSSes vs. salons.

I would start with a few titles - Ultra Black Hair Growth (very appealing name- more titles should focus on length, imo), Science of Black Hair, Curly Girl, and go from there. I wonder why they don't do this already? It's a good idea.

I don't think that they'd carry such books en masse because they make a ton of money from weaves.

If most black women learned to properly care for their hair, these beauty supply stores would lose a lot of business.