Home / Salon equipment order checklist

This checklist is written for salon and clinic buyers ordering aesthetic equipment: light-based hair removal units, radio-frequency units, cavitation and lipolaser units, cooling-based slimming units, and vascular removal devices. It uses the evidence pattern of this site as its example: thirteen families listed at family level, three shop-listed units described in detail, and the rest left as questions for the supplier. The same pattern applies to any supplier whose catalogue mixes family descriptions with individual listings.

Step one: name the exact unit

The first question in any order is the simplest and the most skipped: which exact unit is on the order? A family name is not a unit. Laser hair removal equipment, IPL equipment, and SHR equipment are families, and a supplier may list several units inside one family. An order that names only a family does not name a unit. Ask the supplier to name the exact model, and ask for that model identity in writing.

Ask the supplier to name the exact model, and ask for the model identity in writing — in the quotation, in the order confirmation, and on the shipping documents. If the supplier cannot name a model, treat the order as unconfirmed until one is named. If the model name changes between the quotation and the order confirmation, ask why, and ask for the change in writing.

For units evidenced only on a shop listing, ask the supplier to confirm that the unit on the order is the unit on that listing. Shop listings change: a photograph can be swapped, a figure can be edited, and a listing can be withdrawn. A written confirmation that ties the order to the current listing page is worth more than a screenshot alone: ask for the confirmation in writing, and keep a dated record of the page as well.

For families with no named unit at all, ask the supplier to name a unit before discussing specification. Do not accept a family description as a substitute for a unit identity. A family description can be accurate about the class and still say nothing about the unit that will arrive.

Step two: separate the specification source

The second question is where each specification figure comes from. Figures on a shop listing are listing figures: they describe what the seller wrote, not what an independent test verified. Figures on a company website may be family descriptions rather than unit specifications. Figures in a conversation may be estimates. An order should record, figure by figure, which source each figure came from.

Ask the supplier to confirm, for each figure that matters to the order, whether it comes from the current product page, from a data sheet, or from a general description. Ask for the confirmed figures in writing. If a figure matters — a spot size, an energy range, a frequency range, a screen size — and the supplier cannot source it in writing, treat that figure as unconfirmed and decide whether the order still makes sense without it.

Pay attention to figures that appear in only one place. On this site, for example, the operating frequency of the RBS device is not published at all, because the shop pages give different figures for it. That is the honest treatment of a conflict: publish neither figure, and let the supplier confirm one in writing. A buyer who finds the same pattern elsewhere — two pages, two figures — should do the same: ask, do not pick.

Also pay attention to figures that appear without units, or with units that do not match the quantity described. A package size without a unit, a power figure without a voltage, or an energy figure without an area is not a specification; it is a number waiting for a misunderstanding. Ask the supplier to complete it in writing.

Step three: list the included parts

The third question is what arrives in the box. A unit, a handpiece, a cooling part, a set of probes, and a set of consumables are different items, and a listing photograph may show items that are not included. The included-parts list should be written, item by item, before payment — not discovered on delivery.

Ask the supplier to list every included item: the main unit, each handpiece, each probe, each cooling part, each cable, and each consumable, with quantities. Ask whether items shown in a photograph but not in the list are included or not. Ask whether consumables are single-use or reusable, and ask how replacements are ordered.

For handheld devices such as plasma pens, the probe count matters: a listing that describes seven probes should be matched by an included-parts list that names seven probes. For vascular devices, the probe or needle type matters: ask which types are included and which are ordered separately. For light-based units, the handpiece count and the cooling arrangement matter: ask what is included and what is an optional extra.

If the supplier describes training or operating guidance as included, ask for that in writing too: what form it takes, how it is delivered, and whether it applies to the unit on the order or to the family in general.

Step four: settle the support terms

The fourth question is what happens after delivery. Support terms are where vague wording does the most damage, because a phrase like full support or long-term service can mean anything from a phone number to a spare-parts programme. Ask for specifics, in writing, before payment.

Ask how faults are reported: a contact channel, a response expectation, and a process for diagnosis. Ask whether support covers parts, labour, or both, and for which period — and ask for the period in the order documents, not in a conversation. Ask how spare parts are ordered, and whether parts for the unit on the order are stocked or made to order.

Ask what happens if a unit arrives different from the confirmed specification. That question should have a written answer before payment, not after delivery, because after delivery the buyer has already paid and the supplier has already shipped. A written answer does not prevent a dispute, but it gives the dispute a document to refer to instead of a memory.

This checklist does not promise that any supplier will agree to every term. Some will not, and a buyer may still order. The point is not to win every term; it is to know, before payment, which terms are confirmed and which are not, so the order decision is made with open eyes.

Step five: confirm the delivery terms

The fifth question is delivery itself: what is shipped, how it is packed, how it is tracked, and what documents accompany it. Ask the supplier to confirm the delivery terms in writing, including the shipping arrangement and the documents that travel with the goods.

Ask for the packing list to match the included-parts list from step three, item by item. A packing list that matches the order is the simplest check on delivery, and a mismatch found on delivery is easier to raise with a matching document in hand.

Ask for tracking information and for the documents that customs or a clinic may need. Do not assume that a document exists because a listing mentions it; ask for the document by name, and ask for confirmation that it will accompany the shipment.

Finally, read the order confirmation as a whole before paying. Check that the model identity, the confirmed figures, the included-parts list, the support terms, and the delivery terms all appear in it, and that nothing in it contradicts an earlier written answer. If something contradicts, ask before paying, not after. An order confirmation is the last cheap moment to fix a misunderstanding; delivery is the first expensive one.

A note on what this checklist cannot do

A checklist cannot verify a supplier. It cannot confirm that a company is what its website says, that a listing figure is accurate, or that a support promise will be kept. Verification of a company belongs to a different process: checking the company's own pages, its shop profile, and independent sources, and recording conflicts rather than resolving them by guesswork.

What a checklist can do is make the order scope explicit, so that both sides are ordering the same thing. That is a smaller claim than verification: not a promise that everything will go well, but a written record of what was agreed, so that if something goes differently, both sides can see where the agreement ended and the misunderstanding began.