Small Business Saturday Blog

The Float Spa was founded by Camille Pierson in 2015 after she discovered the benefits of floatation for herself in alleviating the symptoms of PTSD following a trauma.

The Float Spa now offers a full range of therapies including floatation therapy, infrared sauna sessions, yoga classes, massage, acupuncture, and homeopathy. These therapies can be used to alleviate stress, to treat mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, to ease physical aches and pains caused by postural problems, injuries or chronic conditions, or simply to optimise wellbeing or enhance sporting performance.

As they were starting out, the Float Spa faced an interesting double-edged challenge: on one hand, it was the first float centre in the Brighton and Hove area, with no established market; and on the other, it also offered massage and yoga classes, both of which were overrepresented in the area. This meant that they needed to raise awareness of the benefits of float therapy, while simultaneous proving the worth of their yoga classes and other therapies.

They tackled this by ensuring outstanding levels of customer care and hiring excellent yoga teachers and therapists, which ensured positive reviews. They were gradually able to build up their client base through extensive social media campaigns, networking and a huge number of word-of-mouth recommendations.

Appearing on the American Express Shop Small campaign interactive map enabled the Float Spa to find new customers and increase its footfall as it established itself as a new business in the area. This campaign underpins Float Spa’s belief that small businesses are at the core of every successful community, and offers a cashback offer for Cardmembers who shop small.

When the Float Spa was forced to close its doors in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, they kept their business going by running yoga classes online, creating a schedule of live classes alongside a member area on the website through which members could access hundreds of yoga classes whenever it was convenient for them. With the help of a small local grant, they also kick started a bath bomb making business using Epsom salts and natural ingredients.

During lockdown, the Float Spa worked alongside a group of local acupuncturists who were treating NHS workers for anxiety, depression and stress, offering lockdown-compliant free use of their facilities. They also ran a pay it forward campaign during lockdown: for every float purchased during lockdown for use after restrictions ended, they donated a voucher for a float session to an essential worker – 150 free float sessions were offered in total.

The Float Spa also supports the work of the Brighton Yoga Foundation, of which Camille is a trustee, to bring the benefits of yoga to the community for free: this is something that has continued throughout lockdown, providing valuable stress relief to the local community during these difficult times.

The Float Spa also has a strict environmental policy of avoiding single use plastics and offering a refill service for toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner and Epsom salts to customers, which has saved roughly 500 five litre plastic bottles, 50 15 litre plastic bottles and 500 1kg plastic bags since it was implemented.