Part Two of: What is the best spray tan machine and equipment?

Look for a warranty

A warranty is not just a promise to fix something that breaks; it’s a company’s confidence in their own product.

If the machine you’re looking at doesn’t come with a warranty: run! That machine doesn’t have a warranty for a specific reason—it’s going to break down.

The longer their warranty, the greater their confidence.

To protect yourself, you should really only be looking at companies that offer a year (or longer) warranty. Anything shorter than a year runs the risk of a machine randomly breaking down, but after a year if the machine hasn’t broken it most likely will not (Think of it in terms of your car: it’s either going to break down all the time, or you’re going to break down before it will).

Don’t buy off of a third-party website

Don’t get me wrong: I love Amazon.com as much as the next person. I buy little gifts, books, and stuff from them, but I would never buy a car off the website. For one thing you don’t know who you’re buying from. Yes, they might be an honest, reliable person, but they might also be selling you some cheap, broken knockoff. While it might not be a big problem that the pages of my book are bent, it would be a big deal if your spray tan machine came with a broken fan.

The main problem I’ve had with places like Amazon and Ebay is that, after I’ve purchased the item, I am on my own if anything goes wrong. Have you ever tried to contact a seller on Amazon? I have, and I would rather French-kiss a land mine than go through that particular brand of torture again. On top of being easy to contact, especially with something as important as a spray tan machine for a spray tan business, you want to deal with someone who knows what they’re talking about. What if you have a wedding party coming in for a group spraying and you need answers NOW—would you want to hear, “Well gee…have you tried kicking it?” or would you rather be told, “Yes, we know what the problem is.”

Where you should buy

You should always try to buy direct from a reliable company. Look up reviews about the company, talk to other spray tan salons and hear what they have to say about their machine:

--Does their machine come with a warranty?

--How was the customer service of the company they bought the machine from?

--How hard is it to get in contact with the company if something goes wrong with the machine?

--What other equipment does the company sell? (Are you going to have to buy the rest of your spray tanning supplies elsewhere/does the company specialize in air compressors or spray tan machines?)