McDonald's Coffee Customers

We all know these shops.  The chop shops.  The "sure you can come in now, or later, or whenever" shops.  The area's "oh God tell me you didn't pay someone to do that to your dog" shop.  Now, if this is your business model please remember it is not realistically a sustainable model.

McDonalds can sell a cup of coffee for $1 because they're trying to get you to buy other things.  Their $1 cup of coffee is called a "loss lead" which means they lose money on one item to get you in to hopefully buy more items.  If grooming is your main service, having a loss lead grooming operation is never going to last.  When you're grooming 2-3 dogs compared to Dunkin Donut's and Starbuck's one dog, you are burnt out waiting to happen.  

Petco and Petsmart use their grooming as a loss lead to sell their dog training, food and other retail.  That's how they can afford $10 - $15 bath specials.  The ONLY way this works is if the groomer is a Hobby Groomer who does it for fun, and often these types of shops are in home shops (not all obviously) or have low overhead.  McDonald's type of shops are trying to produce so many haircuts that accidents happen, the haircut doesn't always have that "finished look", their shop often looks like a conveyer belt.  These types of shops tend to "hire" Independent Contractors over Employees because they simply cannot afford to pay their employees taxes.  McDonalds style shops tend to be a bit run down, the employees over worked, the clients tend to be fly by night.  Clients tend to be the 5, 7 or 10 all over every 3-4 months, once a year or twice a year messes.  The owner may simply feel bad about charging the clients more so keep their prices low... The worst places a grooming salon owner can be is constant pity of their customer, the more you take out of your pocket the less you have to grow your business.  If your business isn't growing and updating it is dying a slow death.  

Depending on location I'd assume a shih tzu haircut would be $20 - $45 at this shop.