Sourcing and managing supplies efficiently is one of the biggest operational challenges for Australian salon owners.
Whether you're opening your first salon or streamlining an existing one, supply ordering is one of those tasks that feels simple at first but quickly gets complex. Log into one supplier's website for colour, another for foils, a third for retail stock, and maybe text your rep on WhatsApp for everything else. Every supplier has its own portal, its own product names, its own minimum order for free shipping.
Australia's hairdressing and beauty services industry generates $12.4 billion in annual revenue across approximately 40,000 businesses (IBISWorld, 2025), and most of those salons still order manually from 3–5 different suppliers. According to the ATO Small Business Benchmarks (2023–24), salon supplies should sit at 11–18% of turnover. Yet without a system, most salons overspend by 20–30% — that's $6,000–$16,000 a year going to waste.
How Australian salons order supplies today
If you run a salon in Australia, your supply ordering probably looks something like this: log into one supplier's website for colour, another for foils, a third for retail stock, and maybe text your rep on WhatsApp for everything else. Every supplier has its own portal, its own product names, its own minimum order for free shipping. Most Australian salons order from three to five different suppliers. Your order history is spread across portals, emails, and chat threads. There's no single place showing what you bought, when you bought it, or how much you're spending in total.
Without visibility into your total spending across suppliers, you miss volume discounts, can't prevent duplicate orders, and often pay extra for emergency deliveries when you run out.
Types of salon suppliers in Australia
Understanding who sells what helps you set up the right accounts from day one. There are four main types of salon suppliers:
Companies that carry a single brand or brand family (e.g., a L'Oréal distributor, a Wella distributor). You get trade pricing direct from the brand.
Multi-brand wholesalers that stock everything from foils and gloves to developer and retail. Higher product range, often with lower minimum orders.
Niche suppliers focused on a specific category — lash and brow products, barbering tools, nail supplies, or eco-friendly packaging.
Some smaller or D2C brands sell directly to salons through their own website. Often Australian-made or indie brands.
Most salons end up with accounts at two to four of these — a brand distributor for core colour, a general wholesaler for consumables, and one or two specialists. This is normal, but it's also where the ordering complexity starts.
How to order salon supplies: step by step
Whether you're setting up from scratch or tightening your existing process, here's the practical workflow:
List every product you use regularly — colour, developer, foils, backbar, retail, and consumables. Group them by category and note which supplier you currently buy each from.
Apply for trade accounts with 2–4 suppliers that cover your list. You'll need your ABN and usually proof of qualifications. Most wholesalers approve within 1–3 business days.
Start with your core stock — the products you go through every single week. Don't overbuy on your first order; it's better to reorder more frequently until you know your usage patterns.
Pick a consistent day each week or fortnight — Monday morning works well for most salons. Batch all your supplier orders together on that day.
Add up what you spent across all suppliers each month. Compare it against the ATO benchmark: supplies should be 11–18% of your turnover.
*These steps work. But they still mean logging into multiple portals, remembering different passwords, and manually tracking spending across supplier portals. That's where most salons get stuck.
What salon supplies should actually cost
The ATO Small Business Benchmarks (2023–24) are clear: cost of sales (professional and retail products) should be 11–18% of turnover for hairdressing businesses. Here's what that looks like across different salon sizes:
Five ordering mistakes that cost salons money
These are the patterns we see across Australian salons. Each one costs money in different ways:
Ordering reactively when you notice something is running low leads to stockouts mid-service and costly emergency deliveries ($15–$30 per rush order).
When your orders are scattered across 3–5 supplier portals, you can't answer 'what do I actually spend on supplies per month?'
Buying six months of a retail product to hit a free-shipping threshold ties up cash in stock that sits on your shelf.
Placing frequent small orders below the threshold means you're paying $10–$15 delivery each time instead of batching orders.
The same product can vary by 15–25% between suppliers. If your ordering is siloed per supplier, you never see these differences.
*Indicative ranges based on industry observations across Australian salons and ATO Small Business Benchmarks (2023–24).
The easier way: order from all your suppliers in one place
The steps above work — but they still mean logging into multiple portals, remembering different passwords, and manually tracking your spending. That's why Australian salons are switching to ordering platforms that consolidate everything.
SalonStocker is an Australian salon procurement platform that consolidates ordering across all your existing suppliers into one checkout. You search across all your suppliers at once, add products from different brands to a single cart, and check out once. The platform splits the order and sends each part to the right supplier automatically. Nothing changes for your suppliers — they receive the order as if you'd logged into their portal directly. Your prices stay the same. Your delivery terms stay the same.
View products from every supplier in one place, making it easy to compare prices and availability without logging into five different portals.
Combine products from different suppliers into a single checkout. The platform automatically routes each order to the correct supplier.
Track spending across all suppliers in one dashboard. Compare your actual spend against ATO benchmarks and identify overspending instantly.
Automated alerts before you run low on core products, preventing stockouts and emergency orders.
A complete record of what you've ordered, when, and at what cost. No more digging through supplier emails.
Your existing supplier pricing and delivery terms stay exactly the same. You're just ordering more efficiently.
Frequently asked questions
According to ATO Small Business Benchmarks (2023–24), salon supplies should cost 11–18% of turnover. For a salon turning over $300,000 a year, that's roughly $2,000–$4,000 per month.
Yes. Most Australian salon supply wholesalers require an ABN and proof of industry qualifications (such as a Certificate III in Hairdressing) to open a trade account.
The average Australian salon orders from 3–5 different suppliers — typically a colour brand distributor, a general wholesaler, a retail brand, and one or two specialists.
Most salons reorder weekly or fortnightly. Setting a consistent reorder day (such as Monday morning) helps prevent stockouts and reduces emergency orders.
Yes. Platforms like SalonStocker let you search across all your suppliers, add products to a single cart, and check out once. Your existing prices stay the same.
Search all your suppliers in one place, add products to a single cart, and order from everyone at once.
SalonStocker is free for salons, takes less than 5 minutes to set up, and doesn't change your existing supplier pricing or delivery terms.