and Beauty Works already occupied an appealing tenancy, offered professional services and had customers coming through the door. “They wanted to sell, we wanted to buy – and it worked,” Nappa said. The deal was set in stone earlier this month, including two physical stores and an established e-commerce business, taking Oz Hair & Beauty’s national network to 34 stores, with another nine scheduled before the end of this year. For the retailer that began as Rockdale family salon in 1986, it’s a significant acceleration. Oz Hair & Beauty entered e-commerce in 2012 under Nappa, then a 19-year-old university student, and was joined by his brother, Guy, in 2017, who now serves as co-owner and chief operating officer. Collectively, the brothers lead a company that employs more than 500 people and achieved an annual revenue of more than $100 million earlier this year. Nappa previously described growth as a patient, store-by-store exercise that prioritised capability over speed. The Beauty Works purchase appears bolder, though he rejects any grand acquisition doctrine. “We look at everything. And I wouldn’t say just because we did Beauty Works that now we’re going to do heaps of acquisitions,” he said. “But then equally, I wouldn’t say we’re never ever going to do more acquisitions.” Nappa noted that the team didn’t sit down and agree that 2026 was the ‘year for acquisitions’, but Beauty Works emerged as a conjunction of timing, location and commercial compatibility. Evidently, the appeal was strong, with a working store, proven sales, a suitable fit-out, and an online operation already functioning beyond the retail surface.  The sought-after ground level In Melbourne Central, suitable ground-floor space carries a mercantile allure. “There’s more demand than there is supply,” he said, while also recognising the challenge of securing the right tenancy in such a strongly held shopping destination. Opening a new shop usually requires Oz Hair & Beauty to estimate likely sales, albeit with limited accuracy after dozens of openings, whereas Beauty Works supplied an existing operation. “We knew the sales that it was doing, and we knew what we could do with those sales,” he said. “They’re the boxes that we wanted to tick.” The Melbourne Central store will be rebranded as Oz Hair & Beauty, with its existing fit-out remaining. Nappa said it doesn’t look like Oz Hair & Beauty, but reassures that it doesn’t matter. “It still looks very, very nice,” Nappa said. Beauty Works’ website and marketplace presence will continue under their current identity for now, preserving an online audience Oz Hair & Beauty has little incentive to unsettle. Beauty Works has a very loyal online following, and Oz Hair & Beauty wanted to respect that identity rather than move too quickly. More Oz Hair & Beauty services More consequentially, Beauty Works brings Oz Hair & Beauty’s capabilities that it has been cultivating across its network. Around 13 Oz Hair & Beauty stores already include a hairstylist, while Beauty Works combines retail with a salon, beauty room and scalp spa. “They’ve got the head spa, which we don’t have,” Nappa said. “So we want to see how that works, and then, if it works as we think it should, then we may start to incorporate that into more of our stores.”  Nappa still speaks cautiously about turning a promising idea into a costly strategy. For Oz Hair & Beauty, services can drive repeat visits and stronger customer relationships, yet staffing and operational complexity make them difficult to replicate nationally. “If we open up 15 stores a year, I’d say three or four of them would have a service element to it,” he said. “And if they start to become more profitable, then you never know, maybe more. But it’s a lot harder to do it at scale.” Considering the beauty retail market is worth over 6 billion in Australia, Beauty Works can be viewed as both an acquisition and audition, in other words, a beautifully fitted Melbourne shop whose future influence will be earned one customer at a time.