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La Peau D’or Beauty Wellness Spa

Editorial Team

5 min read
Ann Marie, owner of La Peau D'or Beauty Wellness Spa

In this installment of Meet the Merchant we speak to Ann Marie, owner of La Peau D’or Beauty Wellness Spa located in Mississauga, Ontario.  Ann shares how her passion for helping others led to the opening of her spa over three decades ago, gives us her insights on the joys of being an entrepreneur, and how switching to Clover has contributed to her business’ continued success.  By using a combination of the handheld Clover Flex and Clover’s Virtual Terminal, Ann was able to quickly pivot during uncertain times to accommodate her business and clients.

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Some people are born to be entrepreneurs – Ann is one of those people, having a vision of what she wanted to do with her life since she was a child.  Though her vision evolved throughout her adolescence, her interest in beauty and wellness remained.  It wasn’t until her high school guidance counselor helped her discover the emerging profession of esthetics that she realized how she could combine her creative and artistic nature with her interests in beauty, wellness, and her love for taking care of others.

In 1990, Ann transformed her vision into reality when she opened the doors to her concierge style spa for the first time, offering clients a place to relax and be pampered without having to leave the GTA.  La Peau D’or has now been successfully operating for 32 years, with many of her clients loyal since inception.

Ann’s recipe for success?  Treating your clients well and loving what you do!

Ann Marie, owner of La Peau D'or Beauty Wellness Spa sitting at fireplace

And, like many entrepreneurs, since 2020 Ann has faced some of her biggest challenges to date – among the challenges were ensuring her staff and clients stayed safe while still offering the best possible services, as well as finding creative ways to endure the financial challenges of the pandemic. Though business as usual was not an option over the past few years, she decided to make some exciting changes while things slowed down including rebranding her spa through renovations, working on a new website, and upgrading from her previous payments solution to the handheld Clover Flex.

Ann Marie, owner of La Peau D'or Beauty Wellness Spa holding the Clover Flex

“It was during the pandemic that we thought, we’d like to find a portable [payment device] that we could bring outside for curbside pickup as opposed to the machines that we were using before,” Ann says. “Before I called Clover, I called the company I was using and said, ‘I want to have a machine that I can bring outside to clients,’ and nobody got back to us.  So, I spoke with someone at Clover and they were very proactive. Clover was on it.  I had someone always communicating with me, and I think within a couple of days I had the machine sent out to me.  I was so impressed with that. Since then, I’ve told so many people about Clover.”

Although Ann likes the sleek look of her Clover Flex, she loves its portability that allows her staff to take payments from anywhere in the spa, or even curbside. 

“I just think it’s a superior machine overall,” she says. “I think it’s very professional looking and that’s how we want to present ourselves.”

Another favourite feature of Ann’s is the Clover Dashboard, included with all Clover accounts, which provides Ann with the ability to sign into her account on any device connected to the internet to process orders using the Clover Virtual Terminal.  Clients can call ahead to place their order; her staff can send an invoice to the client and then process the payment on Clover’s Virtual Terminal.  The Virtual Terminal streamlines payments for the spa and offers clients a convenient solution to pay ahead of time and quickly pick up their purchase in store or curbside. 

“I feel it is contributing to our continued success,” she says. “Clients will call and say, ‘I’m coming to pick this up, could you process everything and bring it outside?’ We can do that by processing the order through our Virtual Terminal.  It’s just so easy.”

As with many client-facing businesses, onsite services have been limited for La Peau D’or over the past two years.  As business returns to normal, they will again be able to offer their clients the full range of services they pride themselves on.

La Peau D’or Spa provides their guests with an exceptional and welcoming experience from beginning to end.  Guests are greeted at the door by staff who take their jackets and offer them slippers and a robe to wear during their visit. The spa offers a large range of esthetic treatments and therapeutic services, from registered massage and infrared saunas to skin and nail care, full day spa packages, and more!

Woman sitting in chair at La Peau D'or Beauty Wellness Spa

“Our clients have come to trust us and have become like family,” says Ann. “So, for that reason, we always say that we have a spa family as opposed to ‘clients,’ or ‘guests’ coming in.”

Ann is passionate about focussing on her clients and providing them the most up to date services.  Ensuring her services are safe, effective, and long lasting are among her main priorities – and of course making sure that her clients leave the spa feeling amazing inside and out.  Her greatest joy is seeing the happiness on client’s faces when they get the results they were looking for.  Lifting people’s spirits through the services she offers is her reason for doing what she does.

“I love what I do – for me, it’s not just a job,” Ann says. “It’s my passion and my clients see that.  And because I’m in that mind space I’m never bored – I’m always at work having fun.”


Read more of our Meet the Merchant stories for real-life stories of small businesses in action all over the country. Want to be featured in this series? Send us a message, and if we can include you in a future interview cycle, we’ll send you an invitation! 

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