Checklist · Your booking page

The salon booking page checklist for Canada: twelve things to fix this week

A client deciding between you and the studio two streets over makes up her mind in under a minute, on her phone. Go through these twelve points with your own booking page open beside you, and count how many you would pass today.

Build your page in a 14-day trial

Read it the way a stranger reads it

You know what your services are, how long they take and where to park. A new client in Mississauga or Saskatoon knows none of it. She found you through a friend's story or a map search, she has your page open in one tab and somebody else's in another, and she will book whichever one answers her questions first.

So the test is not whether the page is pretty. It is whether a person who has never met you can choose a service, see what it costs, pick a time, understand your rules and press book without sending you a single message. Each message she has to send is a chance for her to give up.

The twelve checks

Score one point for each you can tick without changing anything.

1. A cover photo of your own work

Your chair, your shelf, a set you are proud of. Stock photos are spotted at once and make a small studio look like a franchise.

2. Your logo and your colour

The page should feel like the same business as your Instagram. In Slotora the logo, cover and brand colour carry onto the booking page and its buttons.

3. Every service named, timed and priced

“Gel overlay, 75 minutes, C$65” beats “Nails — ask for price.” Clients who cannot see a price assume it is high.

4. The people, with faces

A photo and two lines about each team member. Clients book a person, especially for lashes and colour.

5. A gallery that is recent

Ten photos from this season do more than fifty from 2023. Put your best before-and-after near the top.

6. Reviews from people who came

In Slotora a review can only be left by a client who had a booking, through her own link, and you can answer it publicly. That is worth saying on the page.

7. An address clients recognize

The street, the area people search for, and how to get in: the plaza entrance, the buzzer number, where to leave boots in winter.

8. Gift cards that can be bought online

The friend who wants to give a pedicure for a birthday should not have to come in during your hours to pay for it.

9. A pass or package for regulars

A visible five- or ten-visit pass tells a returning client that you want her back, and gives her a reason to commit.

10. A page that works one-handed

Open it on your phone on the bus. If you have to pinch, zoom or scroll sideways to book, so does every client.

11. The cancellation rules before the button

Your window and any fee, written plainly and shown before the client confirms, not tucked into a follow-up email.

12. A confirmation that does something

An instant email with the time, the address, a link to move or cancel, and a button that puts the visit in her own calendar.

Three Canadian rules your page has to meet

Prices first. The Competition Bureau treats it as drip pricing when a business advertises a price and then adds mandatory fixed charges on the way to checkout; the only extras it accepts are charges a government imposes, such as sales tax. For a salon that means the price beside the service is the price, apart from GST/HST or PST where you charge it. A compulsory “booking fee” or “product charge” that appears only at the last step is the pattern the Bureau describes.

Privacy second. The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act covers businesses that collect personal information in the course of commercial activity, and Alberta and British Columbia have their own private-sector laws that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner treats as substantially similar. Both ask you to collect what you need and keep it safe. A booking form needs a name, a way to reach the client and, for some treatments, a note on allergies; it does not need her date of birth.

Marketing third. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation separates the email about her appointment from the email about your Boxing Day offer. Slotora follows it for Canadian salons: a campaign goes only to clients who said yes to marketing, or who have visited you in the last two years — the implied-consent window the Act sets for an existing business relationship.

Then book yourself, as a client would

Ten minutes, on your phone, with mobile data rather than the salon Wi-Fi.

Find
Start from where clients start
Tap the link in your Instagram bio and the one on your Google profile. Both should land on the booking page, not on a home page that makes her look for it.
Choose
Pick your most popular service
Can you see its length and price without opening anything? Is the next free time this week, or does the calendar show you are fully booked until spring?
Check the dates
Look for your own closed days
Pick a date on your province's next statutory holiday. If you are closed, the page should not offer it. Slotora suggests the statutory holidays of the province your postal code is in, and you tick the ones you close for.
Confirm
Finish the booking and read the email
Does the confirmation arrive in seconds, show the right time zone, and let you cancel without phoning? Then cancel it, so the slot is free again.

Where a Slotora booking page falls short in Canada

So that nothing on this list surprises you after you have moved.

English only: The booking page and the client emails are in English for Canadian salons. Salons in Québec cannot open an account yet.
No text confirmations: Confirmations and reminders go by email. Texts to Canadian mobile numbers are not switched on in Slotora yet.
Few clients will find you through Slotora itself: Your page is listed in the Slotora directory, but the directory is new in Canada. Expect your own links, not the directory, to bring the bookings for a while.

Booking page questions

Should my booking page show prices with tax included?

The Competition Bureau's guidance on drip pricing allows government-imposed charges such as sales tax to be added on top of an advertised price. Other mandatory charges belong in the price you show. If you are registered for GST/HST, say on the page that tax is added.

What should a booking form ask a new client?

Her name, an email so the confirmation and reminder reach her, a phone number if you want to call her about a change, and anything you genuinely need for the treatment, such as an allergy. Asking for more makes the form longer and puts more personal information in your care.

Can I add a marketing tick box to the booking form?

Yes, and leave it unticked. CASL treats marketing email differently from appointment email, and an express yes recorded at booking is the clearest consent you can have.

How many photos should the gallery have?

Enough to show the range of what you do, and recent enough that a client would recognize your current work. Ten good ones from this year are better than a long scroll of old sets.

Does the page handle my province's time zone?

Yes. A Canadian salon's times follow its own province — Newfoundland's half-hour offset included — so a client sees and receives the time she will walk in.

Score your page, then fix the missing points

Every check above has a place in a Slotora booking page. Open an account, add your photos, services and rules, and book yourself as a test client. The trial runs 14 days and starts without a card.