Retail Products Expiring on The Shelf?

Make sure you're not losing money or damaging your patient experience with expiring products.

Have some products edging up to their expiration date? You're not alone.  If you are not sure what to do with them or how to recover the expense keep reading.  We have all at one time or another dealt with slower than expected retail sales and the subsequent back stock of expired products in our storage rooms.  But there are simple solutions to get you back in the black.

Expired products cannot be sold to patients, nor should be housed in exam rooms, lobbies, or common areas.  Do not throw those products away, you have options.  Reach out to your assigned sales representative, they want to keep your business and a good sales rep will do everything to keep you happy.  Depending on the skin care company, sales reps are given car stock to engage new customers.  Many reps will be able to sub out some of their car stock for your expired products.  They can also reach out to their regional managers for additional support, or worst case the company as a whole may buy back the products with a restocking fee.  Another option for expired products is to offer them at deep discounts to your staff or create simple staff contests awarding them with product.

If your products have not yet expired but are getting close you have more options in offloading the overstock.  Cleansers, sunscreens, and moisturizers can all be placed in your backbar for facials, peels, microdermabrasion or microneedling.  Use them in treatments that are bringing in revenue.  If you have 3 months or greater before they expire, promote a simple “Gift with Purchase” to your existing customers.  Purchase an IPL package and receive a free sunscreen or free retinol with chemical peel series.  Finally, if you find your practice is not happy with a skin care line and are looking to bring in a new line.  Many skin care companies will offer competitor buy backs with your opening order.  Just remember keep your opening orders as small as possible with as few SKU’s as possible.

Now that you have options for those products, here are a few tips to avoid repeating the past. When you get a new shipment of products in, have your staff check expiration dates on arrival. If you have less than 18 months to expiration, send the products back.  Most sunscreens and anti-aging products have a 2 year shelf life.  Make sure your practice gets full advantage of those 24 months.  Check your sales history before ordering and order as small a quantity as possible, no need to keep a stockroom full of products.  Well, unless it’s Aquaphor, that stuff lasts forever.

The Cancer No One Takes Seriously

Last month, honor of National Melanoma Cancer Awareness Month, Healthy Aging interviewed a dozen folks who have been diagnosed with skin cancer. I digitally recorded their stories, and our photographers took lifestyle photographs. Their voices and images tell their story in the following slideshow.

 
Surprisingly, I noticed something different in these cancer survivors than other people I had interviewed with other types of cancer, such as breast cancer. The survivors' attitude upon diagnosis was almost systematically laissez faire at first.
 
While the diagnosis of any type of cancer is so difficult that generations of people still whisper the word or refer to it generically as "C," most people I interviewed were more intrepid about treatment. Their thoughts weren't on radiation or chemo.

There may be reasons why people don't take skin cancer so seriously. For one, the two most common types of skin cancer are generally not lethal.

Skin cancer is the number one diagnosed cancer in the United States. In fact, more than one million people are diagnosed with basal cell or squamous cell (non-melanoma) carcinoma annually. Given the high numbers, we all likely know someone who had a skin cancer removed. However, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are slow growing and are most often not lethal. For example, less than 1,000 people die from non-melanoma cancer annually.

Melanoma is what you do need to worry about and why we need to seek out dermatologists, who are trained to recognize all types of skin cancer.

Most recent statistics estimate that 68,720 new cases of melanoma will have been diagnosed in 2009. That's far less than breast cancer (194,280), colon cancer (106,100) and lung cancer (219,440). But there's one noticeable difference:

We have the tools necessary (our eyes and a hand mirror) to detect possible problem areas. Our follow-up with a dermatologist annually can ensure the cancer is simply removed, before it spreads to our lymph nodes. 

"It's so easy," Elizabeth Encarnacion says, after being diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma at 32. "It's not even like you have to get a mammogram or a colonscopy, you just have to go and have someone look at your skin."

The good news is when melanoma is caught early, it is highly curable, boasting 90 percent to 95 percent survival rates. 

On the other hand, malignant melanoma, when caught later, is a cancer with few effective treatments. The median number of people who are diagnosed with advanced stage melanoma, for example, don't live a year, according to the Melanoma Research Foundation.

And while many say ignorance is bliss; denial can kill.

"The best thing you can do, if you have any doubt, is go and get it checked," says Schilling. "The last thing you want to do is lose your life to something you have been looking at."

Read the rest of this article

Marci A. Landsmann is managing editor of Healthy Aging. She can be reached at mlandsmann@advanceweb.com.

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Mail Order MedSpa Business Opportunity

If the clients won't come to you, then you can go to your clients. At least for product sales, that is. A new trend that many aesthetic practices are adopting is online product sales. It's attractive for many reasons:

1. It adds an accommodating service to your current client base who may be too busy to stop in and pick up their products. Convenience is the way of life these days!
2. It introduces your practice to new customers.
3. It brings in revenue that you may not have been exposed to before.
4. It's relatively easy to manage and doesn't require much staff time (i.e., low overhead).
5. It gives you the opportunity to stand out when compared to other competitive practices in your area.
6. And, it can even raise your SEO ranking! 

Concerned about the cost of shipping products? No worries! The U.S. Postal Service now offers cost effective Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes in various sizes. So, if it fits, it ships!

Want to make your product line even more attractive and personalized? Try custom label packaged products like the ones from Concept Labs, CBI Laboratories, or Natural Skin Care to name a few. In fact, there are so many companies providing private label skin care products today that you can be very particular with ingredients and additives. Just perform an online search for "private label skin care" and many companies will come up in your search results.

Some practices offer relaxing CDs for sale, aromatherapy products, sleep masks, robes, and many other comfort items that create a sense of personalization with their clients and prospective clients.

How do you add an online store to your website? Companies such as Go Daddy offers "Quick Shopping Cart®", and there's X-Cart®, to name two. Like many internet-based businesses, there are a ton of them. Just use the search terms "online shopping software" and see what comes up!

What comes up then could be your practice's revenue in an area which probably could use a little boosting!

Author: Paula D. Young RN runs internal operations and training at Young Medical Spa and is the author of the Medical Spa Aesthetics Course, Study Guide, and Advanced IPL & Laser Training course for medical estheticians and laser technicians.

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Fluorouracil for Wrinkles

If you pick up most women's magazines in the waiting room of many offices, usually what you see are endless fashion ads and fragrance samples. One magazine, Allure, seems to delve into the beauty industry far deeper than cosmetics and moisturizers with their investigative reports on scientific research. Kudos to you, Allure.

As a dermatology nurse, I came across a brief interesting article in the December issue of Allure entitled "Fast Anti-ager". For those of you who do not read Allure, let me post the entire article:

Doctors have long noticed that patients who use the prescription cream fluorouracil, a treatment for precancerous skin lesions, "tend to look really good afterward," says Dana L. Sachs, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Now a study led by Sachs has documented the cream's anti-aging effects. Patients who used it on their faces twice daily for two weeks had decreases in wrinkles, uneven skin tone, and brown spots, as well as in precancers. The drug injures the skin, triggering a beneficial repair response; redness can last for a few weeks. Sachs says studies are needed to assess fluorouracil's cosmetic use in people with relatively mild sun damage.

Perhaps a study worth following.

Author: Paula D. Young RN runs internal operations and training at Young Medical Spa and is the author of the Medical Spa Aesthetics Course, Study Guide, and Advanced IPL & Laser Training course for medical estheticians and laser technicians.

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Sunbeds & Skin Cancer

Via CNN: Study: Sunbeds as harmful as cigarettes

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) had previously classified sunbeds as being a "probable" cause of cancer.

However, the agency is now recommending that tanning machines should be moved to "the highest cancer risk category" and be labeled as "carcinogenic to humans".

It followed a review of research that concluded that the risk of melanoma -- the most deadly form of skin cancer -- was increased by 75 percent in people who started using sunbeds regularly before the age of 30.

The IARC also says there is evidence of a link between melanoma of the eye and the use of sunbeds.

In an article in medical journal The Lancet, WHO oncology expert Dr Fatiha El Ghissassi said: "The use of UV-emitting tanning devices is widespread in many developed countries, especially among young women.

"Analysis concluded that the risk of skin melanoma is increased by 75 percent when use of tanning devices starts before 30 years of age.

"Studies provide consistent evidence of a positive association between the use of UV-emitting tanning devices and ocular melanoma -- skin cancer of the eyelid.

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Botox Busters? Study shows wrinkle creams don't work.

 From Reuters: Study; Wrinkle creams don't work.

Luxury-price products don't work any better than drugstore brands, according to the study by Consumer Reports magazine, which ranked Olay Regenerist, priced at about $19, as the most effective in reducing wrinkles.

But none of these products made a significant difference in the skin's appearance.

Glucosamine study may impact the way dermatologists treat UV- related skin damage.

The panel determined that n-acetyl glucosamine, a more stable form of glucosamine, reduced the amount of melanin in skin cells, meaning there was less excess pigment in the skin to cause age spots.