Why European Eyewear Industry Needs Revamp?
I should have paid heed to my mother when she suggested me to carry a spare piece of spectacles before I left home to pursue my postgraduation at RWTH Aachen, Germany. 2 months into my first semester, I broke the frame and I needed a replacement immediately. My eyes have disproportionate powers of vision and one of the lenses has a power of -4.0 D. Thus, it was difficult on my part to walk around in public without specs.
I visited a few optical stores in Aachen, including some popular brands in Germany. After visiting almost 6 stores, I decided to import eyewear from India. Here is why decided to do so and why I feel that the European eyewear industry needs a revamp.
1. Slow Service
In India, it hardly takes one day to get the new prescription glasses you ordered at your local store. In small towns like Balasore, the shops could deliver it within two hours of ordering, unless you ordered a very specialized lens, say a bifocal lens or a polarized varifocal high index lens.
However, in Germany, you have to wait for at least a week to get your prescription glasses delivered. The processing time of seven days for a simple reading glass is a pain.
Do you know that it takes just 30–45 minutes to make a prescription glass regardless of how complex they are?
Here is the story of LensCrafters, a prescription eyewear company that revolutionized the American eyewear industry in the 1980s.
Dean Butler was a manager with Proctor & Gamble before venturing into the optical business. He had quite some experience in product marketing and brand management during his stint at P&G.
In 1983, he started his “LensCrafters-While you wait” optical business. He was smart enough to put the working lab next to the store. This allowed the LensCrafters to deliver the prescription glasses within an hour. LensCrafters achieved revenue of over $2 million in its first year of operation. Butler sold the company to ‘US Shoe Corporation’ in 1984.
2. Logistics
From the story of LensCrafters, we learned that having lab equipment and a technician at the store can help optical stores deliver the glasses within hours.
If the stores have to outsource the eyewear fabrication, they have to ship the glass frame you chose to that location. This not only increases the time but also the cost involved.
3. Lack of Frame Diversity in Stores
A fashion-enthusiast may feel satisfied wearing eyewear from brands like Prada, Ray-Ban, Oakley, Georgio Armani, Versace, and DKNY. However, what most people don’t know is that they are all owned by or licensed by the company Luxottica.
Luxottica not only manufactures glasses but also owns several retail chains across the world. Remember the company LensCrafter I mentioned before. It’s now owned by Luxottica.
Luxottica owns retail chains like Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut, Oliver Peoples, Target Optical and many more. These retail chains mostly sell the glasses manufactured by Luxottica.
Traditionally, only 4–5 eyewear companies have dominated the European market. Since many Europeans are fashion conscious and are willing to spend more on eyewear, the eyewear store owners in Europe usually sell Luxottica or Safilo frames or glass frames by local manufacturers with high markup prices.
If you have never heard of the Safilo group, let me tell you, this brand licenses glass frames to Dior, Fendi and Marc Jacobs.
4. High Cost
While searching for cheap glass frames in Aachen, the lowest I bumped onto was priced at €99 and it was not up to my taste. So, if you want to wear decent eyeglasses in Europe, be prepared to spend over €250 for the frame alone.
On the other hand, trendy locally-made eyeglass frames would cost in the range of ₹1200- ₹4000 (€15-€50) in India. If you are buying Chinese designer knockoffs, you can get it much cheaper, say ₹400–₹600 (€5–€8). Of course, designer frames have a higher markup price. However, the point I want to make is that average glass frames would cost at least 8–10 times less in India than in Europe.
According to market estimates, the markup on prescription glasses sold in Europe is at least 1000% of its manufacturing cost which includes labor.
In 2020, premium designer glasses make up nearly 15% of the global eyewear market which is now over 120 billion (Source: Medgadget). The top eyewear brands have to pay to the designers they employ. This further adds to the cost.
The merger of Essilor with Luxottica in 2017 has led to further monopoly of the company in prescription eyewear. Essilor was the global leader in lens manufacturing till 2017 before it merged with Luxottica. This has spiked the prices further.
5. Online Sale in Europe
Lenskart in India is a key player which has been quite successful over the last decade. With rising internet penetration and financial backing by SoftBank, this startup has managed to lure the young audience. Lenskart sells prescription eyewear and other optical products online. You can find the right glass frame on the website by uploading a photo of yours and then trying different frames. It also has a ‘try-at-home’ feature. Currently, the company is valued at $1.5 billion.
Warby Parker, an American startup, valued at $1.2 billion attempted to disrupt the monopoly of Luxottica in the United States and became successful to an extent. There are several other online eyewear stores like ‘39 Dollar Glasses’ which have also been successful in North America in the past decade. These online stores sell quality prescription eyewear for less than $50. The satisfaction of their customers can be inferred from the online reviews/testimonials.
Read: The mistake that turned Warby Parker an overnight legend
However, Europe is yet to have a success story of online eyewear business. Europeans have been Luddites in adopting the concept of online stores for eyewear. The year-on-year global 1% growth in online eyewear is mostly driven by the rise of online eyewear stores in Asia and America.
Conclusion
The high cost of prescription eyewear can be attributed to market monopoly and lack of a dedicated local lab for assembling lenses and frames. Coming back to my ‘broken glass frame story’ at the beginning, I imported a new pair of glasses from India to Germany for less than €45 which included minor custom duties as well. I received the package in 4days from India (1 day for fabricating eyewear, 3 days for transportation), which was faster than the 7 days time to make eyewear in Germany. Hence, I believe that the European eyewear industry needs a revamp.
I hope you like this article. Please hit the ‘clap’ button to show some love. I write on education, internships, and career on the website, ‘www.anumbmind.xyz’.
