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Thread: Independent labs vs. Supplier-owned labs:

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  1. #1
    What's up? drk's Avatar
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    Independent labs vs. Supplier-owned labs:

    Reading this month's Vision Monday, it shows the sales success of the Essilor/Hoya/Zeiss labs vs. the independents.

    Assuming this trend continues, what should the "average joe" retail account and the end-user consumer expect, in the future?

  2. #2
    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Big Smile Maybe you did not see.................

    Quote Originally Posted by drk
    Assuming this trend continues, what should the "average joe" retail account and the end-user consumer expect, in the future?
    drk, If you have not seen the future coming.........provided it all works out according to plans........."elimination" is the word.

    After elimination comes the next stage..............."domination of the marklet."

    Fidel Castro is on the way out .................but they are on the way in and if their plans will work as long as Castro did, ..........you and me will be 6 feet under ground for many years, until there will be a new change.

    :bbg: :hammer:

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Ryser
    drk, If you have not seen the future coming.........provided it all works out according to plans........."elimination" is the word.

    After elimination comes the next stage..............."domination of the marklet."
    I could not have said it better. We are seeing this very fast in the independent lab business in the US as well as in the retail optical chains. Market share will drop for independents in both sectors. The difference between the 2:
    - independent labs willingly sold their position to one of the big boys
    - independent practioners are giving their dollars to eyewear manufacturers who re-invest their profits to open and/or buy other chains to further increase their retail market share.

    Likely scenario....at some point we will see mergers between eyewear and lens manufacturers who then will grow their retail positions further.

    Doc

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Unhappy Opticians Like Gas Stations.....................

    Quote Originally Posted by DocInChina
    Likely scenario....at some point we will see mergers between eyewear and lens manufacturers who then will grow their retail positions further.
    Doc
    Doc, You spun the thread even further.....................

    It is kind of sad to see a profession paying itself, for the contract to get killed, out front.

    Remebember the old independent gas station ?.............where you could get repairs done on your car for good hourly rate...........change and rotate the tires..........gey some free air in your tires.

    Today they are mostly corporation owned self service stations with a 24 hour food store where the operater can make an extra buck. All the gas of the different brands come out of the same refinery = being the same product at the same price. The only competition is the location.

    The optical retail outlets will become a similar concept in the very near future, run and directed by the corporations.

    :hammer:

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    What's up? drk's Avatar
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    How will the loss of independent labs put optical retailers out of business? I understand how the Luxottica vertical integration strategy hurts us, but what about the labs? Are you predicting a lens manufacturer/lab merger with a retail giant? Essilor and Luxottica?

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    Future .......................

    Quote Originally Posted by drk
    How will the loss of independent labs put optical retailers out of business? I understand how the Luxottica vertical integration strategy hurts us, but what about the labs? Are you predicting a lens manufacturer/lab merger with a retail giant? Essilor and Luxottica?
    The frame manufacturer is using his profits to purchase and buy out optical retailers. They just did buy another bnch right in China. Ultimate goal = eliminating competitors

    The lens manufacturers buy up labs, Zeiss just announced another one this week.

    Many independent labs do not qualify anymore for certain products made by the large corporations.

    Lens manufacturers will go even more high tech............so that you can measure everything you need in the retail by high tech instruments, and can eliminate professional emplyoees, because the order goes straight on line to the lab, who does the producing and finishing of the glasses.

    A optical store will become an order and delivery kiosk and not more than that. Places like that can be run by the corporations who then will take the profit from manufacturing the lens...........processing the lens..........and retailing the lens.

    You, as an optometrist will not loose your profession but you will be downsized to supplying prescriptions..............day in day out and you will be dreaming of it at night.

    When everything is in place you wioll be able to see the final fight.................which is who gobbles up whom. By then you will have 3 or 4 dominating companies in the optical trade and they will merge or swallow each other and then cremate and bury the balance.

    I am no Orwellian but the the light at the end of tunnel is visible.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by DocInChina View Post
    - independent practioners are giving their dollars to eyewear manufacturers who re-invest their profits to open and/or buy other chains to further increase their retail market share.
    Doc
    Hmm...this sounds familiar. Too bad nobody mentioned this before.:hammer:

    Oh! That's right...when someone mentions it, it's called "Lux bashing", and you can't bash our "partners'.









    The OD's and indie opticians reaching retirement age are all getting ready to jump out of the optical airplane. Big surprise when their golden parachute (which has been packed by their "partners") doesn't open. Witness the amount of practices that people are trying to almost give away on Optical Marketplace.

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    Redhot Jumper Uncle Fester, you have always been good at digging up the old threads.

    continuation 10 years later ..................

    Thanks Uncle Fester, you have always been good at digging up the old threads. Optiboard is our best historic archive ever, and may it stay alive forever.

    ................and here we still are, 10 years later, some of us that survived somehow, for better or for worse.

    Having gone through the whole thread.........there was no mentioning of the on-line opticals which are the deadliest cancer to the independent conventional optical retail as well as wholesale.

    Always faster developing modern technology will be there to help the mostly manufacturer owned operators, to make decent quality products, without seeing their customers.


    Big Fish eats smaller Fish

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