Beauty company to franchise

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FRESH APPROACH: All About You owners Tracy and Tony Ahern plan to franchise their Christchurch skincare and beauty services company.

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Tracy Ahern's decision to close her home-based beauty therapy salon and open a store at Westfield Riccarton is proving worth the risk.

The Christchurch woman is now franchising her All About You business, after opening a second clinic at The Palms two years ago and one in Auckland.

"We've just had an offer on our Palms store and as we sell one franchise we will focus on the next one, hopefully that will be in Wellington."

Ahern plans to sell one franchise a year, and wants to have a clinic in most of New Zealand's big cities.

She employed 36 staff and planned to add another five following expansion in her current stores. She was employing more registered nurses to administer Botox and a number of other Medispa procedures.

"A few years ago we probably looked like a business that would do well during periods of strong economic growth and might struggle as people started to restrict their spending, but in reality that hasn't happened."

Some years ago Ahern owned a salon at the Elmwood Shopping Centre and sold it to spend more time with her four children. She established a small salon at home but that gradually got bigger. She employed staff and the neighbours started complaining about all the cars coming and going at her home.

"We decided to do it seriously and I didn't want to go back to suburbia. It was a really big gamble for us."

All About You was voted Westfield's best retailer, it was a category winner in Christchurch's Top Shop awards and No2 in the New Zealand Beauty Association's awards for best clinic at Riccarton and best new clinic at Auckland's Sylvia

Park.

"By placing ourselves among the greatest areas of retail foot traffic, we have made professional services far more accessible."

People were placing more importance on health and appearance, she said.