When Susanna Jang, the owner of Tips To Toes salon in south Los Angeles, started her business in 2004, she could depend on customers to call for an appointment.

But with a nail salon on every corner, she said customers have become “spoiled,” and no longer stick to appointments or even make them at all. Now, when they do call, it’s to ask about pricing, and if they end up coming in, they request a cheaper service such as a polish change versus a manicure.

“I lose the most customers when it’s busy and they don’t want to wait,” Jang said. “It used to be that more people made appointments, but now customers expect to come in and be served right away.”

Jang, who moved from Korea in 1990, cannot afford to lose any business. But she says it is hard to predict when the salon will fill up if customers think they no longer have to call in advance.

In addition to manicures and pedicures, Tips To Toes on Figueroa Street offers other beauty treatments such as facials and waxing. The salon attracts most of its business from students at the nearby University of Southern California, and for the first time in ten years, Jang said she is unable to predict the busy cycles.

“Before, I always knew that during the midterm and finals seasons, I would have no customers. The busy seasons were before spring break, back to school and sorority rush. I would always have more people working Thursday and Friday before the weekends, but I can’t read customers’ minds anymore,” Jang said.

For this reason, Jang said she thinks secular rather than cyclical shifts affect the salon more. But the recession and the government shutdown, as well as the abundance of cheap nail salons, have taken a toll on her profits. She said that after the 16-day-long shutdown in October, she lost 40 percent of her customers in the area.

“Because people were laid off, it made them think they should be careful,” she said.

In 2006, the housing costs reached a peak in Southern California and Jang saw a boom of customers. “They must have thought they had a lot since the value of their homes had gone up,” she said. But then, after the bubble burst and prices fell in 2007, the swell of business dried up. “Some people came regularly, but when we heard they were looking for a place to live, they stopped coming.” The other businesses in the same office plaza have struggled too: “there was an acupuncture place next door that was doing good business before the economy went bad, but they had to move two years ago,” Jang said.

Jang has had to contend with salons that offer increasingly lower prices for the same services.

“I think what I charge is pretty standard,” she said ($16 manicure, $21 pedicure). “I don’t know how they can survive that way, unless the owners have husbands or someone to support them.”

Indeed, Jang’s hunch may be correct. Some salons set their prices so low that they cannot maintain a healthy business. Last summer, ABC News reported on a 20/20 investigation that revealed that many salons are unsanitary. In California, investigators found tuberculosis-related bacteria in 16 of the 18 spas they checked. According to an expert in salon-related infections aiding the investigation, competition is so high that discount salons may skimp on skilled technicians and high-quality disinfectant to keep their prices low.

In 2009, TIME magazine reported that nail salons nationwide took a 25 percent revenue plunge. During the recession, Jang lost business slowly, since she maintained a base of regular customers from USC. But she said that up until four years ago, she never got phone calls about prices.

Jang plans on keeping the prices on the basics the same, but is considering raising the cost of “extras” such as gel manicures. The reason she has not done this already is because it is difficult for her to attract new customers and she knows the regular ones are willing to pay the current amount. “They care about service, not prices,” she said. When she first opened Tips To Toes, Jang offered a discount in the Daily Trojan for a free tenth visit. But only her regulars benefitted. Now, Jang relies on word of mouth and tries “not to hire beginners,” to keep the quality of her service.

The recession may have affected business in another way: worried about job security after graduation, USC students may have put in more time at the library rather than attending parties, thus creating less of a demand for professional beauty care.

“The girls that come in look tired and like they’re under more stress in the past five years,” Jung said.

But on the other had, a salon visit can also serve as a way to recharge, which is the reason Jung remains optimistic about the future of Tips To Toes.

“The salon is different from a place like Blockbusters (a video rental chain that closed in the U.S.). You feel positive because people come in to relieve stress. It’s a human-to-human service.”