Low-cost barbershops and the decline of the traditional hair salon

10-euro barbershops: who is replacing the neighbourhood salon

The classic barbershop is not closing for one reason. It is closing for four at once, and none of them is fixed by cutting the price of a haircut. The tax burden on the self-employed worker with everything in order. The lack of new blood in manual trades. A customer who has lost purchasing power and squeezes every euro. And competitors who charge 7 or 10 euros per service and still keep opening new premises. The result is visible in any average town: neighbourhood salons on the way down, refurbished barbershops on the way up.

The haircut that doesn't add up with the till

The argument most often repeated is simple arithmetic. A premises with a licence, electricity, water and self-employment social security contributions has a cost structure that cannot survive selling haircuts at 7 euros. If the price doesn't cover the rent, then either the volume is huge or something else is keeping the business afloat. Hence the suspicion that runs through the whole issue: that some of these establishments would operate as a front for laundering cash rather than as genuine hair businesses. To be precise: this is a hypothesis, not a verdict. No ruling exists that confirms it as a general pattern.

What is documented is the density. In specific areas you can count five or six premises within a hundred metres, with little visible clientele and brand-new fittings. Few businesses survive such tight competition selling the same thing at the same price. The question remains open.

The succession that never came

There is a factor that precedes everything else and is almost never acknowledged: nobody inherits the trade. The hairdresser retires, their children don't want the scissors, and the premises is handed over. In parallel, the middle-income customer has cut back on spending and many have opted to buy a clipper and cut their hair at home. No business fabric can withstand such a drip of losses without anyone new coming through the door.

Distrust and its limits

The underlying problem is not the colour of the licence held by whoever wields the scissors, but the suspicion that the rules are not the same for everyone. The claim is that some premises cut costs by operating in the shadows, exploit periods of vulnerability and compete against those who do pay everything. If that were true on a large scale, the market would stop being competition and become something else. If not, then there are plenty of their own accounts to review.

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If the pattern holds, the appointment-only salon will survive as a niche service: more expensive, scarcer, with a loyal clientele. The cheap haircut will become the standard. It is a prediction with reservations, because it depends on something nobody has done so far: genuinely opening up the books of the premises that open, close and reopen with barely any customers.