What's with all the Barbers in town?

Chojin · 26 May 2019 at 22:05

Demand for meat pies has gone up in recent times.

[FnG]magnolia · 26 May 2019 at 23:13

Thread title reads like a Seinfeld line.

Flubble · 27 May 2019 at 10:19

there's 5 right next to each other here and within a 0.4 mile walk we have 14 just along the main road

d_brennen · 27 May 2019 at 10:29

Blue160 said:
Shops that sell things that can be bought cheaper online are gradually disappearing. You can't buy a haircut online(!) so there are proportionally more barbers on the high street now. Same goes for takeaways, beauty salons, cafes etc.

That's my theory anyway.

My mother in law is a mobile hairdresser and yes, you can book online

She mostly specialises in old ladies and wedding parties tho.

Her business is booming of late, keep telling her to take on apprentices to spread the workload but she just likes doing her thing

DarrenM343 · 27 May 2019 at 10:42

Flubble said:
there's 5 right next to each other here and within a 0.4 mile walk we have 14 just along the main road

And I bet there's always a wait on a Saturday morning, right?
Always find getting hair cut frustrating. Not enough where I live in the suburbs and Saturday's can be horrendous. Recommended to mine that they maybe have one person people can book a timeslot with, possibly even charging a surcharge that I for one would be willing to pay to not have to wait, but their response was that they cannot do that because they can't get good staff who want to work full time. Some have sidelines too so barbering for maybe 20 hours a week is only one thing they do for £.
Need more immigrants who actually need the money

Andrew_McP · 27 May 2019 at 11:02

Intriguing thread. I'm a bit slow, so hadn't considered money laundering, but I've been wondering for a while why barbers have become so common round here in recent years. I was worried blokes were just getting more metrosexual and visiting more regularly to be preened. But if it's only drug money getting tarted up, that's less worrying.

Flubble · 27 May 2019 at 12:04

DarrenM343 said:
And I bet there's always a wait on a Saturday morning, right?

no idea, i try to stay away from anything that might have a large queue on a saturday

Greebo · 27 May 2019 at 12:08

Russinating said:
It's a pretty good front as far as they come. £10-20 per 20 minutes for each member of "staff" and no paper trail; could claim everyone pays cash and how can you prove if some random person off the street has or hasn't had their hair cut recently.

Assuming your payroll records are purposefully poor you could claim you've got 4 people in every day generating £600 each. That's £16,800 a week.

But in my local Kurdish barbers that is exactly their footfall. They have 4 barbers and there is always a queue. So how do you launder anymore money through than what they already take?

And there are great value. A haircut, cut throat razor shave with hot towel, ear hair burning, nose hair waxing, lots of nice smelling up on stuff all for £17 all in. And relaxing. I have fallen asleep on more than one occasion.

Gypo · 27 May 2019 at 12:10

Lots in Crewe & Stoke and most seem to be busy all of the time

mmj_uk · 27 May 2019 at 12:39

It's probably all of the metrosexuals wanting to keep their hair a static length and going in for a trim every 1-2weeks, me I just get it cut down and then let it grow for a few months but I'm not too fusses about the way I look.

itchy · 27 May 2019 at 12:47

Slush fronts for heroin and coke. The is loads around my area.

Telecaster · 27 May 2019 at 14:06

Not been to a barber for 20 years or so, but I have noticed when walking around some of the crappier parts of town that every other shop is a Barbers.

Cleisthenes · 27 May 2019 at 14:08

The mini high street near where I live must have about 10 in 400m. No idea how they stay in business.

Nasher · 27 May 2019 at 14:11

I live in a really small town and there's already 4 along the main street

What also seems to be multiplying is tanning salons.

It's like restaurants in Paris. How do they stay in business when you literally have whole streets of them?

james.miller · 27 May 2019 at 14:14

We had a Turkish one open recently and they all drive suped up Audis and whatnot. I never did quite make sense to me :confused:

Nasher · 27 May 2019 at 14:16

james.miller said:
We had a Turkish one open recently and they all drive suped up Audis and whatnot. I never did quite make sense to me

Yea, shouldn't they have MX-5s?

I guess Audis are the new hairdressers cars

adam cool dude · 27 May 2019 at 14:22

Greebo said:
And there are great value. A haircut, cut throat razor shave with hot towel, ear hair burning, nose hair waxing, lots of nice smelling up on stuff all for £17 all in. And relaxing. I have fallen asleep on more than one occasion.

That's more than my wife has done. Are you coming out the closet or something?

Not only barbers but Eastern European shops. Over saturated is an understatement and they are always getting raided by the police all the time. On the old main street there must be close to 20 of them.

MonkeyBasher · 27 May 2019 at 17:53

A barber shop is very easy to setup and has very little in the way of overheads.
The chairs are rented out to the staff, who in some cases are happy to share chairs and as mentioned above can also be illegal workers.

Its very easy to launder money in a barbershop. For every haircut that they actualy do they shove another 10 through the tills. All that cash is taken to the bank and is now clean.
Give a cut back to the staff to keep them happy, job done.
Its not like they keep a record of number of cuts, amount of hair gel or shaver blades used.
The staff keep the shop supplied through the cash they are given and all the owner has to do is ensure that the electric and water stay on.

The staff actualy make good money from the haircut side of things as tonnes of guys seem to go to the barbers once a week now and are quite happy to spend ages in there getting preemed and trimmed.

LeeUK · 27 May 2019 at 18:54

Loads opened up here too, mostly all Turkish or even Kurdish. Out of about the 15 most nearest ones, on 3 are English and only 2 of those are your no frills straight up and down barbers without all the trendy trendy carp.

Russinating · 27 May 2019 at 19:43

MonkeyBasher said:
The staff actualy make good money from the haircut side of things

Not always true, my old hairdresser was employed (rather than renting a chair) but was only paid per cut. She got 40% of every cut but might have to work from 7am-4pm or whatever and only get a few walk-ins and bookings. Not sure how that works legally but she's left now so...