I really like
EyeOverheard. Lily does a bang-up job of gathering up all of the industry gossip and making it interesting. It's also a great place to keep the pulse of optical industry employees without having to deal with a certain optical forum's overwhelming cast of illiterates (usually).
Anyway, a post from a week ago struck me as interesting and even more so when I read a response by "Barry".
The story can be found
here. It's about how Essilor, "The World's Leader in Ophthalmic Lenses" has decided that independent eyeglasses stores need to move some of their business online.
Read the article, it's exactly the right length.
Barry responds to it with the following:
Call me old, a codger, or even a curmudgeon:
For the forseeable future, there’s nothing that will ever take the place of hands-on, in-person, just plain, good ol’ fashion’d “tryin’ on” when it comes to eyewear. If you disgree, let’s see after John Q. get’s his eyewear delivered to his door a couple a’ days after selecting them on-line.
As we’ve heard so many times from our clients” “I would buy more than *one* pair, if they weren’t so darn’d expensive.
Well, Mildred, I’ve got news for ya: $38.95 is the current ticket, including shipping. Are you really gonna but *that*m many more pairs, and create a real eyewear wardrobe? Who are you kiddin’!
You can’t even choose *one* pair properly, let alone 3!
Bottom line: It’s never been about price. It’s been about confusion and convenience. Just what are the gorilla’s doin’ to adress that?
I've got news for you Barry. There are thousands of people in my little corner of the internet who after discovering the solution to the problem of overpriced eyewear, now have to
figure out how they are going to store/display all of their new eyeglasses.
It takes one successful order -- and with a moderate single-vision prescription, it's a virtual certainty with the right online retailers -- to
permanently remove that customer from your brick and mortar eyeglasses world -- and revenue stream. They're doing a fantastic job with multi-focals too for you (and soon to be me) "codgers".
All of the confusion and second-guessing when you're staring in the mirror at four C-Notes perched on your nose melts away for most when they open a package and they pop on a pair of solid glasses that work -- for $30 or $40.
They expand out from there.
Bottom line: it IS about price -- and guess what, when you're adding to your collection it's a HELL OF A LOT more convenient to order online than to drive to a store to deal with someone who worked at 7-11 last week and who is now inexplicably wearing a lab coat.
P.S. Thanks for yet another example of how you opticians think about your customers ("You can’t even choose *one* pair properly, let alone 3!"). Kudos!
