Uber for Barbers: Build Own Mobile App to Promote Haircutting Service

Haircutting service is in demand all year round (link). It is a stable business and its market grows along with the cities’ population. Still, life is speeding up. People are constantly moving from one city to another and don’t have much time to find a suitable barber to make a haircut. The times when a man visited one barbershop for 30 years are gone.

Do you own a barber parlor? Has it been tough to grow your business recently? There’s one last frontier to conquer and it is expanding the reach of your services and meeting clients where they spend most of their time – in their phones, checking their apps.

Even if you run a small-scale operation, you will see the results in one and a half years. Consider it a business management tool to get orders, gather and store client data, communicate with your clients, receive payments, receive feedback, schedule the appointments, or plan a home visit to deliver barber services on-demand. 

Making an Uber for hair cutting is a great idea if you’re a modern entrepreneur that keeps an eye on trends and feels the pulse of life. Connect barbers and clients in the easiest and straightforward way – through the mobile app. Uber for barbers is a simple mobile application idea and a good example of an on-demand mobile app. Surely, it won’t become a billion-dollar venture but can become a stable revenue stream.

We offer a ready-made solution with a possibility to customize your platform with the original design for roughly $ 38 000. But the final price depends on the nature of your unique inquiry.

You can create a portfolio, making photos of your clients before and after a visit to your barbershop or even if you make a home visit. A hairdressing app with such functionality can effectively serve any barber operation.   

Why do barbers need an app?

Many business industries need the implement software solution to optimize and automate work processes. Barbershops are not an exception. It can be really tiring and boring to wait to make the hair cut in the long queue. Also, manual lists of clients have exhausted their necessity and accuracy. This process can much easier and more pleasant for clients as well as for barbers. We covered the key advantages of integrating your barbershop business with an on-demand app:

• excellent client experience
• up to date company
• constant connection with clients
• ability to choose a suitable time and specialist
• data analysis
• access any time from anywhere
• pictures and reviews of barbershops for clients
• a quick search for a free barber in the local area
• management of clients` appointments
• ability to discuss a future haircut and cost for it in advance
• flexible for online payments via gateway payment system

Booking App Features

• Barber Portfolio – Lets users select the best barbers by checking their portfolios. This feature can also be used for monetization of the app. Barbers can promote their portfolio through the app and find clients with similar tastes in style.
• Appointment Scheduling – This is a core feature that will save customers’ time and let them book a haircut in advance or in an hour.
• Payment Gateway – Integrate PayPal, Stripe, or any other payment method you prefer.

What Other Options Are There?

If your app is going to be more than just an additional business tool, it can turn around how you make money. Consider the fact that Uber or Airbnb are intermediaries that do not deliver services but provide a platform where homeowners meet tenants and passengers meet drivers. Their business model is Software as a Service (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS).

As a software provider, Uber and Airbnb make a profit from every deal made on the platform. Their ecosystems count millions of daily users and thousands of transactions. At this point, you use Airbnb to find a hotel, even though Airbnb is not a hotel business or hostel provider, it is a broker like Uber is.

To be a barber services provider can be the start of your business but the secret of successful delivery of services is booking optimization. That’s exactly what Booking.com does, gathering millions of travel dorms to its platform and advertising them to future guests, making it possible for the two to meet each other. As an intermediary, Booking.com gets its cut off every transaction made on the platform.

We have been developing Uber-Like applications for a long time. Thanks to this we accumulated a huge base of knowledge, expertise, and even ready-made MVP. Using such modules, we reduce app costs down to the most affordable on the market.

Functions for user app

There is already a high level of competition on the market of uber apps for barbers. So it is crucial to implement common and also advanced functions in your solution. It has to cover all clients’ needs and respond to their expectations from this on-demand service. Here is the core function that should be available in the application from the professional-side:

1. Registration – the step can be performed via email or social media accounts
2. Personal profile – filling the main info about every client like gender, name, age, phone number, address, skills, and experience
3. View users profiles  – all barbers can look through the profiles of their clients but each view will be displayed for clients
4. Bookings check – all barbers can track their schedules
5. Acceptance or rejection of an appointment – usually the app shows all available hours to particular barbers, however, specialists have the ability to confirm or reject the booking. In any case, the clients will get notifications about the barber decision
6. Notifications – barbers get notifications as well from the administrator about any updates
7. Revenue – specialists can check the balance for the current month to know their revenue 
8. Ratings – all clients have the ability to leave a rate and review about barber`s skills
9. Private chat or call – after checking the booking, barbers can write or call a client to specify the details
10. Schedule – every barber creates its own schedule and chooses workdays for clients to know if a particular specialist is available 
11. Dashboard – the barbershop administrator can track all workers in the application and manage them as well as clients
12. Payments – admin also manages all transactions, discounts, and special offers, add multiple payment methods and fix commission for barbers

Monetization

Uber for barbers app not just automates the workflow for barbershops and helps to earn even more money. When people search for a highly qualified barbershop, initially they will surf the web and read reviews about the local ones. The availability of mobile app attracts more clients as it simplifies the process of making appointments, choosing the barber, and finding the location. We covered the most common ways of monetization of your uber app for barbers:

How much does it cost?

To make an app for Barbershop you need designers, developers, business analysts, project managers, and hard work by many professionals. Usually, the price for barber on-demand apps starts from $30K per one platform (iOS or Android ) and it can increase, depending on the company you will choose. However, as we have ready-made developed modules as well as extensive experience in making such applications, our prices are lower. We may deliver your own service app with a unique design developed specifically for your barber business for about $38000 depending on the specification of your business. Our specialists made an MVP estimation for on-demand up, so check it out:

The average time of MVP development is 2-4 months. You can be sure to have a working prototype available for real users in about 3 months. During that time the design, functionality, integrated services, and final submission to AppStore and Google Play will all be done.

Conclusion

Before the beginning of the development Uber app for barbers, you need to research the modern market of the same apps in your area, what function and features they have, what services they offer to compare them, and define the crucial. Also, it is important to realize if your app will be useful and necessary, solve your clients’ complexities and meet their needs and if it will be beneficial for your business. Building a business strategy is key to success, however, you need to create it with the help of a professional Business Analyst who has already experience in this industry.

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