Can you imagine taking a $30 cab ride for a $5 hamburger? I’ve made that investment…on several occasions. I’d do it tomorrow if I could. My pilgrimage and loyalty is to an absolute mecca of fast food, In N Out Burger. Founded in California in 1948, the 300+ location, family-owned enterprise, now has footprints in [...]
Competition! This word often strikes fear in the minds of ECPs. Having the perspective of a student who has studied the business side of optometry for over 40 years, I’ve seen this fear evolve. When Pearle Vision began its expansion in the 1970s, I heard fear. When Lenscrafters arrived on the scene in the 1980s, [...]
I’ve been a student of failure for much of my life. As far as I can remember, I’ve failed. And, indeed, I want to keep failing…if I can. When I was but six, with parents as small town grocers and away much of the day, I held a yard sale. I gathered up a variety [...]
As anticipated, Luxottica is going to merge with Essilor. While so positioned, in fact, Essilor is acquiring Luxottica in a stock swap worth ±$24bb to Luxottica shareholders. The resultant company (we’ll call them “EssiLux”) will be the dominant player worldwide in both the lens, frame, retail and online eyewear business. This announcement is big news [...]
Swiss drug maker Novartis AG (owner of Alcon), whose $60bb in annual revenue makes them the largest drug company in the world, said on December 20th that it had reached a definitive agreement to acquire Fort Worth, Texas-based Encore Vision. Encore Vision has been focused on developing a treatment for presbyopia. That’s right, a medical [...]
“Concentration of Risk” is a banking term which designates the overall spread of a bank's outstanding accounts over the number or variety of debtors to whom the bank has lent money. If the bank has $100mm in outstanding loans and a loan is for $1mm, then the risk concentration is 1%. This example indicates a relatively low [...]
As I travel around the country speaking to private-practice optometrists and their teams, I often discuss branding, markets, and market share. Ours is a dynamic world, with killer competition coming from multiple fronts. Competition for the private ECP is increasing. They must deal with messaging from big box retailers, vision plans, private equity consolidators and [...]
Discount. According to Webster’s the word has many meanings. But generally, when we think of the word as it relates to our industry, it’s “to offer for sale at a reduced price.” In both the retail and the b2b world, a discount generally is provided in exchange for something of value to the provider. For [...]
Opternative Files Lawsuit Seeking to Overturn State Law Smart Vision Labs Launches Telemedicine Pilot Program Warby Parker Contemplates 1000 Brick and Mortar Locations Our industry is changing at warp speed. The pressures on you are mounting in an ever-more complex world. You and your team are dealing with organizational and commercial issues for which [...]
Way back in 2009 I made a prediction. In that blog post, I spoke about forces at work to eliminate the very need for optometrists . While my discussion at the time was about eyewear, little did I know that similar forces would threaten refractive exams. A look back over the past five years proves [...]
