Consumers’ desire for beauty has become a driving force in the beauty service industry which was further developed through specialization and segmentation. Nail-care service, which is one of the beauty services, is showing rapid growth, and intense competition among salons has become apparent. Thus, service management method and marketing strategy are required for customer satisfaction. Therefore, in this study, we tried to classify the nail-care services on the basis of systematization and realization of its characteristics which are fundamental when developing management and marketing strategies. The subjects of this study were women in their 20s and above living in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon areas. As a result, the nail-care service factors are classified as “external environment” (interior, celebrity, newness), “internal environment” (equipment and products, cleanliness, and environment), “location” (location and transportation convenience), “reputation” (good reputation), “technician skill,” “kindness,” “relationship” (relationship, empathy, and affinity), and “price and discount.” The consumer types of nail-care services were classified into three groups according to the degree of involvement of these concept systems. These results can be used as marketing basics and will be the basis for studying marketing strategies. However, the consideration of setting up a marketing strategy for each consumer type will be presented in a follow-up study.

Nail-care services are growing rapidly. If causes for the increase in nail-care service consumption is diversion or self-satisfaction, we can speculate that consumers perform self-care through nail-care services. Nail-care-service consumption should be allowed to increase because of the positive psychological effects such as improving mood or alleviating depressed emotions. Moreover, the psychological effects of nail-care services differ according to consumers’ tendencies. Therefore, this study divides the types of consumers, to investigate whether there is a difference in the psychological effects of nail-care services depending on the types. This study used the questionnaire survey method. Results of the study revealed that the sub-factors of self-esteem, extracted as two factors, were “personal self-esteem” and “social self-esteem”. Consumers were classified according to the sub-factors of self-esteem into four groups. There were differences in the psychological effects of nail-care services according to these four groups. It was found that all groups had psychological effects above the average value. This result indicates that only the degrees of psychological effects differ in accordance with the types of self-esteem, and that psychological effects generally play a large role in all types. Since psychological effects were positive for everyone regardless of their self-esteem, utilizing nail-care services considerably reduces the depression and anxiety of modern people. Nail-care services expected to become the basis of the nail therapy field.