Lenscrafter's 30 day return policy

[Specs]

I really don't understand why Lenscrafter's would have a 30 day return policy on a custom made item, with the reason for return being - "I feel like it". Isn't the client responsible for their decision. I do understand the marketing strategy. I'm sure it works too. With this policy being nationally advertised it also tells me that there is a good chance a new client will be buying used frames. I'm guessing Luxottica doesn't take a 3 week old frame in perfect condition and throw it away. Back on the shelf for someone else is my guess. I wouldn't want to buy a used frame or a "cleaned up one". Lord only knows whose head it was on. I bet the general public doesn't think about that one. I'd need photo evidence of the discarded/donated frames to believe otherwise. It would be great if we could get everyone in the "eye business" to buy a pair there and keep returning them for a month. I'm sure glad you can't take back worn underwear to the store for return/exchange.

[For-Life]

It is interesting because I listened to a radio report a week about about stores like Wal-Mart that have a leanient policy like this and how it has been a bad thing for them. Basically how they are trying to get out of the trap.

The big thing with Lux though is Lux can always ship them off to Sears, or sell them to other stores as disco's, or add it to their medical insurance plan.

[Blake]

It's pretty simple - they do it because they can (and you can't). The used glasses are donated to the Gift of Sight, so they get good PR and a tax deduction for their relatively minor loss on the returned product.

[For-Life]

It's pretty simple - they do it because they can (and you can't). The used glasses are donated to the Gift of Sight, so they get good PR and a tax deduction for their relatively minor loss on the returned product.

It was posted here that they do not give it to GOS anymore

[Blake]

Well, I suppose that's possible - I don't spend much time around the Lenscrafters these days. But as recently as a year ago that's what we were doing.

[For-Life]

Well, I suppose that's possible - I don't spend much time around the Lenscrafters these days. But as recently as a year ago that's what we were doing.

Yes, it has changed recently. Or so I am told

[Blake]

I found the thread you were talking about - or at least one that brought up the change in policy. I told 'em once I left everything was going to go downhill! :bbg:

[Happylady]

Their warranties are horrible. They charge for replacing scratched lenses and broken frames, even if defective. I think this is where they make it up. They replace the frame and charge the patient and then I bet they turn around and send the frame back to the manufacturer. I bet they do the same with scratched lenses.

[hcjilson]

With all due respect to the members participating in this thread, please keep to the subject of the thread and please do not spread unsubstantiated rumors.The subject is the 30 day return policy, not company bashing.Thanks for understanding.

[PAkev]

It would be great if we could get everyone in the "eye business" to buy a pair there and keep returning them for a month. I'm sure glad you can't take back worn underwear to the store for return/exchange.

:idea: Do you think they will modify this policy if I buy 10 pair a month to try with my difficult or crazy patients before returning them?

[LENNY]

What do you People think hapens with the frames that 3Os return to luxottica?

They have department that makes them look brand NEW!
the same thing probably happens with those frames returned by consumers!

[Leo Hadley Jr]

I can say from experience that I have seen used frames for sale in optical chains that have this policy. If they sell an airlock for a premium price and it gets returned, rest assured it will get new demos, cleaned and put back on the wall. The 30 day policy is a great marketing strategy for the big chains and really, not many come back. The customer just feels alot better making the purchase knowing that they have that guarantee. I do not endorse this policy but it is the way it is.

[Jubilee]

The 30 day policy is a great marketing strategy for the big chains and really, not many come back. The customer just feels alot better making the purchase knowing that they have that guarantee. I do not endorse this policy but it is the way it is.

Exactly. Many don't come back. My experience there was that if someone was unhappy, you worked it out. Most remakes were due to rx issues, maybe a few restyles if that.. and you might get one or two outright refunds a month. And some of those you initiated!

The management teams I worked with would typically restyle you once, and then if you aren't happy offer the money back. Sometimes you lose less money this way.

Being the large player that they are, they can afford to take a hit easier than the average independent. They do make up the monies in other ways...

If I sold my poly lenses for the same price they do, I could afford to have a bit more lenient policy. IF I charged for every broken frame or scratched coating that is more than 6 weeks old, I would have more money to play with as well.

LC can be on the expensive side in many markets. When a person pays $100-200 more for a pair of glasses from them then they should have a darn good guarantee.

Cassandra

[Lab Rat]

i have not worked for lenscrafters for over 9 years now, but even then they had the same 30 day policy....and back then, once the glasses were dispensed, if they were returned, the glasses....Rx lenses, frames, and demos if in hand all went into the gift of sight box.....and i also know it was no only the location i was at which did that....as i volunteered to do neutralizing of those glasses and sorting prior to missions.
That being said.....when the complete warrantee from lenscrafters is explained to patients, including the co-pay for lenses or frames or both....i have always offered to my patients to honor lenscrafters policy if they also take that warrantee.......i have yet to have any patient take that, rather than our usual one year on frame and lenses with no co-pay for one time...any reason including abuse, my dog ate it, or.....i ran it over with my car

[Chris Ryser]

Dont forget this is a vertical integrated company...........the frames can be calculated by headoffice at manufacturing cost..............many times multiplied until it reached the consumer..................but in fact it is still the lowest when it comes to nitty gritty.

On lenses they must have super deals and discounts for quantity purchases.

[Alan W]

Hi, Folks
I'm starting to see some real intelligent thinking that I didn't see a few years ago regarding sales philosophy, customer satisfaction and marketing. It's refreshing. I'm an optician retiree, American and European trained, twice degreed, and educated at UC Irvine in Management Studies. I retired because enough was enough income wise. Moved on. I was part of the founding management team of Lenscrafters in 1983. Incredible experience. Being a Certified Dinosaur please be kind, I break easily. But, allow me to share what and why Lenscrafters is what it is.

The decision to be what it is came from its founders observation that at the time too many optical providers took the philosophy that they could do no wrong and the "patient" for the most part, by purchasing services and materials from that provider, accepted those terms. NOT in accord with the growing trend towards consumerism. The question that had to be answered before the company could comfortably launch was: "Is it possible to completely satisfy the customer and have them enthusiastically satisfied all the time (a core value) and remain profitable as well as expand. The answer was "yes." Opticians and Frame Stylists, although hired at top dollar in order to attract the best, didn't always agree, even as employees. But, investors unanymously said: "That's the only way." The company's acid test was to support that proposition with what was truthfully intended (but, not always executed) to be the highest quality eyewear and, quite unlike the service level of the associated professional community, in about an hour; not 3 weeks. They spared no money for the best equipment. They sought out the best people to make it happen. I and a handful of new team members in Southern California sat for weeks on end interviewing literally hundreds of people from the optical and retail world looking for people who could make that proposition valid. The price for not upholding it was to get fired or retrained. The report card was a "B+". Good or bad. The rest is history.

Arguing over whether their philosophy is good or bad is not the point. The public liked it. Investors profited. Their training was pioneering. Career opportunity was nice. If you have a different way of keeping your patients or customers happy, and you succeed . . . wonderful. You should be teaching all those who are not so fortunate. Lenscrafters is NOT the only way. But, I'd rather do it the way Lenscrafters did than market myself the way EyeMasters does . . . "Why pay more?" That, my friends, turns my stomach. My neighbor showed me his $99.00 for 2 pair specials from them. I think the optidude who sold them needs glasses.

[Florida Specs]

What happens if the customer comes back in after the 30 days , lets say it is 60 days. What does Lenscrafters do to satisfy the customer then?

[Alan W]

I see a lot of comment about what is done with the so-called "returns." There's another side of this story. The one that small businesses will never see and can never imagine is possible. That is in the buying power. This is not necessarily a game of returns going to the frame hospital. There's also the highly intelligent inside buying office that says: 'We only have x amount of space for frame "Y". It's a good item and should sell well for a lot of reasons. But, the price is too high and we can't "floor it" (show it, and back stock) for that price. It doesn't make our margins, and if it doesn't sell, we've got dead merchandise unless somebody comes along and takes it off our hands." Ahhh haaa. along comes the "trading office." All the big buyers have trading offices. The original Price Club in San Diego (Now Costco) and Sears and so on and so forth. They already know three things: 1, How much space is allocated for an item (Planogram), 2, What the profit margin needs to be in order to sustain business (markup). 3, How much of that item needs to be purchased in order to get the item at the price that satisfies criteria #1 and #2. So, what they do is purchase whatever it takes to meet those criteria and sell off the rest to another company that "repurposes" the item (dumps, relabels or modifies it). All that happens weeks and even months before the public sees it. What we see as "close outs", overstocks, returns, etc. may or may not necessarily fall into one of those categories. But, the other side of the story is that a lot of vendors who sell those items to the local independent etc. use category titles that make it more palatable to the small resellers way of thinking. Regardless . . . "reconditioning" frames and recycling them back to their own frame boards, is but the tip of the iceberg. I doubt seriously that many of us can identify a recycled item as opposed to one that has been pretraded in the the items lifecycle of company ABC. What we MAY see on the shelves of a Sears store may in fact have been part of a shipment that was never intended to be sold by company ABC, but was part of a massive volume purchase needed to get the right price. Of course, as in the Luxoticca scenario, they now own what at once was the disposal sites for items that were mass purchased and had to be "repurposed." All these attempts over the years to have buying clubs, etc. have been attempts to get product at the volume price. The smart guys who ran those buying groups already knew the game and knew they could get tons of merchandise that was traded off before it ever reached its original buyer's warehouse door. But, the members of the club have been living a life of "unreality" hoping they could dip in to the supply chain somewhere. Only those co-ops and buying groups that could tell the facts of life to their members and actually be, not dip into, the supply chain became the winners. We can conjecture all we want about the good, bad and ugly of making the consumer happy as well as the reseller feeling better about himself. But, for the most part, this is a supply chain game and the big boys look at a frame as pounds of hunks of plastic that can be moved about the supply chain. Life sucks....don't it?

[pbsE46]

Very interesting Alan. Thanks for sharing