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Market Saturation

Do you feel that your area has reached Market Saturation for massage businesses? In the area where I live there are at least 100 businesses that provide massages, between the Casino hotels that have spas, boardwalk massage businesses, massage places, massage chains like "Massage Envy" and "Stone & Hand", independents that work out of there home or travel to clients, and yes even Asian Massage parlors. Being a resort area tourist flock to helps in the summer, but I really can't see how the area can support so much competition. Is getting a massage something that has become more main stream that there is enough business to go around? I always considered massages as a niche market, something most people get for a rare treat and not part of a regular health routine.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Mullins on July 25, 2015 at 11:02am

from what i have learned a lot of places are seeing a benefit here in Cleveland Ohio even the hospital offers Massage to it's patients and their families as a part of treatment

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Permalink Reply by Mark from AQTN on July 25, 2015 at 11:05am

Has the average price for an hour session increased, decreased or stayed the same in the last 5 years?

In an open market, if supply out-stripped demand, we would expect

a) the price of a session to go down, or

b) suppliers (MTs) go out of business and close shop, or

c) suppliers (MTs) to be earning substantially less per financial period relative to earlier times when competitions was lower

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A plan (B) would be to try to create new markets. This would entail advertising to a segment of the population that currently does not seek out MT, is not interested in MT or does not know MT would help and benefit them. This is much easier said than done. Furthermore, if you accomplish this and create a new niche, the other 99 competitors in your area will adjust themselves also and you would lose part of your new niche. In a way, your time/effort/$ investment would be largely diminished because of the loss of clients.

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on July 25, 2015 at 1:40pm

Every place( city, town ) I've worked in has been saturated. One of the reasons( not the only reason ) people want to be massage therapists is because they think they will be rich making $50 to $100 an hour. After all, they can't afford a massage. Here in Anchorage there are, I think, three schools pumping out new massage therapists every few months. Every day someone is dropping off a resume at the spa where I work. There are massage clinics all over the place. However, despite that, the vast majority of people don't get a massage every week or even every month. A lot of people get a massage once or twice a year.. Birthday or whatever. And a fairly large percentage of the population have never had a professional massage. So there is always potential. This is not an easy profession on many levels. I often tell people that its an excellent part time job, but a challenging full time job. Personally during my career have I bought houses and cars, other times I've been on food stamps. There's lots of advice out there. But if I was just starting, a nitch would be important. It was very helpful for me thirty years ago. At the time there was only one Shiatsu Therapist on Maui, and he was elderly. I turned into a Shiatsu Therapist( got him to apprentice me ). Then I could tell people that I was not a Massage Therapist, I'm a Shiatsu Therapist, and the only one. Anyways, it's been for me, both a challenging and rewarding profession. You have to be driven, and when you fall down, you have to get up again. The markets are saturated, but there's still a lot of potential.