Tattoo Parlor Industry Gets Inc. Magazine's Attention

By Jennifer Hopfinger
November 20, 2007 03:02 PM

There couldn’t be a business more anti-corporate than tattoo parlors. After all, tattoos were once an act of rebellion. But now that soccer moms and biker dudes are sporting tattoos these days, it stands to reason that tattoo artists would start thinking about how to capitalize on the growing ubiquity of tattoos.

Inc. magazine profiles a potential tattoo mogul in its November issue cover story, “The Art of Scaling Up.” Writer Max Chafkin tackles the interesting trend and the man who aims to turn his fledgling empire into the “Starbucks of tattoo parlors.”

If anyone is equipped to succeed at turning small-time tattoo parlors into a big-time business, it’s Mario Barth, an artist so talented he has a waiting list a year and half long and a client list that includes rock stars Lenny Kravitz and Ja Rule and athletes David Diehl and Jason Kidd. Barth charges a minimum of $1,500 for the simplest tattoo.

Tattooing in the U.S. is an estimated $2.3 billion industry that includes about 15,000 shops -- mostly individual businesses with one or two artists, according the article. The number of people getting tattooed is on the rise. According to the Pew Research Center, 36 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds are tattooed, compared with only 10 percent of their parents' generation. But the industry remains highly fragmented.

Barth’s four tattoo shops in northern New Jersey employ 30 people and the Starlight Tattoo chain generates $7 million in revenue a year. Barth plans to launch a new shop in Las Vegas in February, located in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and hopes to eventually open shops in every major world city including Tokyo, Beijing, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, and Los Angeles. Barth is bringing traditional business practices into tattooing -- like offering artists salaries, health insurance, and 401ks and hiring IT consultants to build inventory and payroll systems.

According the article, Barth has no problem with the comparison between Starlight and Starbucks because he hopes to do the same with tattoo shops that Starbucks did with coffee shops -- make them pleasant, reliable and pervasive.

Please enter your friend's e-mail address

Please enter your e-mail address

If you would like to include a message, please add it here:

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism