Probably not a good news for hair sellers! I am a financial analyst and have access to the best available research on any public company globally. In my spare time this past weekend I happen to research hair replacement/wig space. I researched all the US, Japan hair replacement company/salon and china's largest wig making company. Now the bad news! Wig making is in continuous decline globally since 2001 and some of the largest research firms have predicted that this industry will never recover will have a continuous decline. The primary reason cited for this is being bald is more acceptable since last few years! also some research firm say that due to gradual advancement in hair loss prevention in coming few years, hair piece/wig making industry future is bleak. What do you guys think?

I think I will worry about that when it actually starts to manifest in reality instead of on a sheet of paper or computer screen.

I think you have faulty research. Where is this miracle cure? Years ago the Helsinki Formula was supposed to be the answer--didn't work. Then everyone held their breath for minoxidil to become available--didn't work either or had side effects that were unacceptable. Propecia? Finistride? There have been lots of 'cures' and nothing really works. From my first hand experience I can tell you that the market is growing. As more people are experiencing hair loss globally both men and women are turning to hair systems. Being bald isn't acceptable to everyone--only those that don't want to be bald and don't know that they have an alternative. My records are private so you'll have to take my word for it. But I can tell you that our customers come from as far away as Iceland and Tasmania. What's the population of the world? 8 billion? That's a lot of heads.
Regards,
John
http://toplace.com/

Lol....the above post has come from the horses mouth. so to speak! A company actually dealing in h/pieces & seemingly making a living, how do you respond to that NGH....will be interesting to read Regards

(04-03-2012, 03:24 AM)ToplaceUSA Wrote: I think you have faulty research. Where is this miracle cure? Years ago the Helsinki Formula was supposed to be the answer--didn't work. Then everyone held their breath for minoxidil to become available--didn't work either or had side effects that were unacceptable. Propecia? Finistride? There have been lots of 'cures' and nothing really works. From my first hand experience I can tell you that the market is growing. As more people are experiencing hair loss globally both men and women are turning to hair systems. Being bald isn't acceptable to everyone--only those that don't want to be bald and don't know that they have an alternative. My records are private so you'll have to take my word for it. But I can tell you that our customers come from as far away as Iceland and Tasmania. What's the population of the world? 8 billion? That's a lot of heads.
Regards,
John
http://toplace.com/

John,
I totally agree that your business has been growing. Had you told me otherwise I wouldn't have believed you! The online hair selling business is bound to grow as Internet usage from last couple of years has been growing exponentially globally and especially in developing countries. So if sales of an online seller increases that does not mean overall the business in that category is growing. In fact it could very well be shrinking in that category as the research points out that hair piece usage overall is decreasing since 2001.

Assuming all the data in the research reports is correct, the data in those reports comes from manufacturers in china and japan. And what that data indicates is the rate of growth in this business after 2001 is going down year by year compared to the growth which happened over many years before 2001. So it indicates the market is contracting. One of the reason they have given is hair loss is becoming more acceptable after 2001 and the number of new people opting for hair system is reducing compared to period before that.

Having said that its possible the data in the research report is not accurate, maybe they didn't correctly take into account that the market is getting fragmented in last few years and they collected data from only big wig manufacturers. you and I have no way to verify this data.

Regarding cure for hair-loss, I do not keep track of what is happening in this area since I started wearing a hair system but I am sure with advancement in science/technology cure for hair fall will be found but I cannot predict when that cure will be found. I can certainly say it will be found and be available to masses affordable one day and that day hair piece will be history. That day could be 5 years from now or 25 years from now!

THe wig market is huge and I personally beleive it can be broken into a few categories. Basically you have the accepted by society female wigs, then you have the hair club for men segment. There is also just the horrendous dead rat on your hair wig segment. This super high quality very undetectable do it yourself segment is very niche and I dont believe it's going anywhere anytime fast. Maybe as a whole the industry will decline but this do it yourself high quality group will see growth if anything.

It is true that being bald has become more acceptable. I can also see that meaning less people opt for hair systems. I don't that means hair companies will go out of business. I do fear, however, that they will have to keep increasing prices. Toplace held strong with cheap systems for so long, but due to trends overseas had to raise their prices up as well. If this keeps happening I'd probably be one that would have to accept being bald. I'm not making enough money for Farrel units, and if he and his prices were the norm, I'd just shave my head and shrug my shoulders.

I don't believe that the data is accurate. Reason: most hair factories are in China and they are small custom factories. Many are small family owned operations. It's hard to believe that statistics are collected from these operations. I can see large wig makers that use synthetic hair and use machines to make the wigs but not the small custom shops. Anyhow, people that wear custom hair systems are investing in themselves and not a Chinese wig maker.

I believe the industry will actually expand. The fact that the quality and undetectability of hair systems is improving and the price is falling and the awareness is increasing, thanks to forums like this one on th einternet, means more people are wearing. If more people choose to wear undetectable hair replacement, there will be less bald people walking around and more with seemingly fantastic heads of hair. This will make the balding look less commmon and less acceptable. Iconic people like Enrique Iglesias and countless actors wear hair, reinforcing the need to be seen to have good hair and maintaining the look of a full head of hair as the more attractive image to have. People like Jason Statham have done a lot to make balding look acceptable but we don't all have super-hero stubble, square jaws and pectoral muscles the size of Australia.

More and more people are turning to wearing when they start receding and create the illusion of no hairloss problems. And that will just make bald heads stand out even more.

BA brought the prices down to an all time low and now he is gone they are heading back up but they won't return to the crazy figures of the $2000 per unit days unless you go to Farrel, the ultimate rip off. The biggest problem I think is the time and effort it takes to make one with human hands. I believe in the future (maybe a while off yet) synthetic hair will acceptably mimic human hair and the ventilating process will be automated by machine. Then we will have hair sytems for $50 that are always exactly the same every single time. The other hurdle is the glues. We need something much better to stick these things to our heads. We need a strong flexible bond that does not break down with scalp oils and is easy to clean. A completely oil resistent strong bond that comes off when a dedicated releaser is used and can be cleaned with a simple 10 minute soak in a special solution.

There is lots of room for improvement with these things but right now we are able to get a very very natural look that behaves and feels almost like our own hair and I for one am incredibly thankful to people like John and others like him for offering us this possibility.

Someone teach me about synthetic hair. Have we really not been able to mimic human hair? I feel like with today's technology we should be able to easily create a hair that looks and feels EXACTLY like human hair, but that also doesn't dry out, die, and lose it's color like the cons of using human remi hair. How far away are we from that point? I mean, for those of you with synthetic gray hair, how do they feel and react?