What differentiates made in China lenses from brand names ??
Now that we have a thread dealing with the subject frames.............lets do the same for lenses.
What differentiates brand name lenses sold by the major corporations and heavily advertised to the general public, from the generic lenses made by one of the many Chinese lens factories?
About $xx.00
:D :cheers: :D :cheers: :D
Many of the lenses are the produced on the very same production lines. Some with a "Brand label" and some without and offered at a lower price. Branding is extremely valuable in the optical industry. It makes the consumer more comfortable in there purchase decision.
Ding Ding Ding!!!! We have a winner!Originally Posted by LKahn
Most of the industry has this figured out - and yes, there are still plenty of shops that don't run the branded game - but for the most part, we are a very connected society and people identify with name recognition. We may not like it, but most people know what a Varilux lens is - and associate that with a PAL. We may (or may not) think there is a better lens, but the consumer identifies with the name Varilux (just one example).
Better drop ball some or contact COLTS at least (especially the A/Rs). And some times when you pull off the leap pad the coating comes off. Cheaper.
Difference in Price..................
I have seen the first Valilux lens in 1955, three years before they got officially launched. My father was one of the many test objects.
The name has been around for so long by now that it has become a sinonym for progressive lenses.
When people talk about progressives they say "Varilux". This does not mean that they think Essilors Varilux, to them it is a progressive,......
........................ like when your thirsty and want a Coke..................do you mean a Coca Cola, or a Pepsi Cola, or a Buba Cola, or a Publix or WalMart Cola? Some will want the real stuff, but the majority just wants the taste of Cola of which all are similar and do their thing against thirst.
Next time a patient asks for a Varilux ask him if he wants an Essilor Varilux or some other one. If the answer is "Whats the difference" you tell him that they are both made in China or the far east and that the real difference is the price.
Ok WHY!!
Why would you want to make less money!
Why don't you just tell them to go to Costco while your at it! They are cheaper too!
So my patient comes in - says they want a 'Varilux no-line bifocal' - I sell them a Kodak Unique because I think it's a great lens - patient goes into XYZ dispensary while on vacation because the patient 'tweeked' them in some way. Optician at XYZ dispensary comments to my patient how nice the Kodak Unique progressive is...
Houston - WE HAVE A PROBLEM.
Not only is that optician stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I am as well because the patient told me he/she wanted a 'Varilux' and I didn't deliver.
And for what it's worth - when I go into a restaurant and ask for a Coke, I expect a Coca-Cola. Not Pepsi, not RC, not anything but the real thing. When I go into AK Rikks to buy a suit, I don't expect to buy a Haggar suit that I can buy at JC Penney. When I am in Chicago and visit 633 N. Wells St. I expect Gino's East deep dish pizza, not Pizzaria Uno, not Lou Malnati's and not Giordano's pizza. So when I sell a Varilux my patient get's a Varilux, end of story.
This opens up a bit of a discussion. I could post a new thread to address my thoughts on this.
But,
How many of us really talk up and get into the name brands?
The reason I ask is because we all know that patients/customers,clients, etc. rarely grasp even a small percentage of what we discuss. Ex: How many times have you told a patient that "the glasses will be ready by the end of next week and we will call you when they are ready", only to have the subject get up walk over to the reception area and ask "when will my glasses be ready? Will you call, or should I call to check?".
Why bring up names, brands and other babble when it tends to not sink in, or not sink in correctly?
Because..............................
Ok WHY!! Why would you want to make less money!
If you buy and resell a China made PAL you get them at a fraction of the price you pay for the corporation product and you can resell at any level you want, and if needed you drop the selling price and make less, but still make some.
You are a sales rep for an upper class frame company, who of course pushes the more expensive stuff (Lux). I understand that because I have been there too in the past.
Following the business news very closely these days, and I hope that you do too, the commercial sky is full of dark clouds. On Monday there where memos circulated that the Bank of America will eliminate 27,900 jobs. Yesterday was an official release that they are giving 17,000 people the boot. That leaves another 10,000 in question of an unsure future.
The retail market is slowing down and the prognostics are for a hard recession or even a depression to wards fall this year.
Heck, do you really believe that opticians will still have golden times when that happens? The times for selling the expensive varieties of frames and lenses will be over for a while.
The fist thing the customers will drop are all the luxury items on the glasses and they will revert to more basic necessities.
The independent optician who is smart will NOW look for a solution now, that will let him survive whenever this is going to happen.
Fore sight: My father back in 1938 bought a huge stock of uncut lenses and frames which carried him through world war II while the other local optician had empty drawers of both items after a short while.
The Optiboard discussion are always full of success stories and mostly talks on the latest most advanced and expensive lenses and frames. Nobody cares about the Sword of Damocles that hangs over your head and takes the precautions which in the worst case makes you live through a crisis and in the best case making a better profit than before.
Brands matter a great deal in our culture. They make us comfortable with our buying decision. So when is the last time you bought "Larry's" toothpaste or is that Crest or Colgate on your brush.
Often the unknown brand is of great quality. But, the consumer is unwilling to take a chance due to lack of knowledge. Branding makes us comfortable or the owner of status. This may or may not be justified. Branding drives the optical industry.
I don't bring up names - I'm pointing out that if my patient asks for it, they get it. Generally speaking, people who wear progressive addition lenses relate Varilux to those lenses. If they ask specifically for a Varilux, that's what I'll give them - regardless of the fact that I dispense almost nothing but the Physio, Physio360, Definity and/or Definity Short.
But I don't bring up specific names - I simply tell them they are receiving the most advanced lens that our lab offers.
OK, I will add my two cents on this one. I was in NYC for several weeks and during that time it was my impression that the economy was slowing down. I saw a lot of empty retail spaces, a lot of going out of business signs and little foot traffic in shopping areas as compared to last year. NYC is my home town and I lived through enough economic downturns to see the signs.
Chris is giving good advice about learning to preserve your capital and make your business purchases wisely. I, however, do not believe this should be your purchasing behavior in economic downturns but during any economic situation. Why would you not want to make as much money as possible?
Making smart purchases does not mean you must buy from China (though if you do you all know where I would like you to buy from). There are many US companies that offer affordable solutions for product. Certainly importing is more affordable if your numbers justify the necessary quantities.
Doc
Chris is telling people to make less money! How is that good advice. If someone want to spend money why stop them?
Also if Chicken little is right and the economy is on a down turn you want to sell the most expensive stuff you can to make up for the business you are losing.
If a company brands a product that you can charge more for and make more money AND the customer asks for it--- Why would you fight it!
If people don't want to spend the money then offer the no names! :hammer:
I agree! 10000000000000000000000%
Brand Name Lenses = Knowing exactly what I am getting. Less risk and a good return
Chinese Lenses = May be the same, may not be. More risk, potential for more return.
Let's be a little careful with the level of innuendo in this thread:
1. To a casual reader, some of the posters are implying that ALL lens manufacturers buy ALL of their lenses from generic Chinese factories supplying the same lens to all buyers. This is simply not true.
2. Chris suggests "tell him that they are both made in China or the far east and that the real difference is the price". Say what??? Does that work for beer? Both Sam Adams and Keystone Light are made in the US, and have a different price. Are you suggesting that they are the same, merely because of the country of origin? Are any other companies tints made in the same country as yours, Chris? Then aren't they the same? If there's no difference between a Varilux design and a generic design, then clearly there's no difference between your tints and other people's tints, right? Why is your brand obviously an improvement, but everyone else's brand is "brainwashing"?
3. Other than Transitions brand lenses, which lenses are "heavily" advertised to the general public" as you assert in starting this thread? Some bear recognizable brand names like Kodak and Nikon, but they aren't "heavily advertised"--there's no TV, radio, or ads in People magazine. Essilor is beginning advertising on some airline flights, but that hardly rises to the level of "heavily advertised to the general public". It's possible you feel that brochures in dispensaries are heavy advertising, in which case I'd suggest that 7,000+ Optiboard posts bearing plugs for Chris' company and products constitutes equally heavy advertising/brainwashing.
4. It was Citibank, and not Bank of America, that announced an RIF of 17,000 employees. If you're going to walk around with a sign that says "The End is Near", at least get the name of the company right. If the Citibank announcement were a sure sign of economic Armageddon, wouldn't we expect the NYSE to have fallen instead of rise? GE and McDonald's announced higher than expected earnings today, and a new inflation report indicated only moderate inflation. Should we take those announcements out of context and predict a booming economy? Or can we always find a news article every single day that supports our beliefs, and ignore the rest...
We all get the message that you hate big companies and brand names that you didn't invent. There are people that have done very well financially by sticking close to the branded products, and others that have done well avoiding them. There's no single formula that covers all situations.
RT
WHAT! Why does Coke out sell every other brand by about million times! Pepsi had to buy up Pizza Hut and Taco bell etc because consumers all wanted Coke and they were losing cutomers. Burger King had Pepsi they were losing customers to Mc D's so they switched to Coke!
How can you say what most people want if the sales in no way reflect it!
Coke versus Pepsi: It's all in the head
The preference for Coke versus Pepsi is not only a matter for the tongue to decide, Samuel McClure and his colleagues have found. Brain scans of people tasting the soft drinks reveal that knowing which drink they're tasting affects their preference and activates memory-related brain regions that recall cultural influences. Thus, say the researchers, they have shown neurologically how a culturally based brand image influences a behavioral choice.
These choices are affected by perception, wrote the researchers, because "there are visual images and marketing messages that have insinuated themselves into the nervous systems of humans that consume the drinks."
Even though scientists have long believed that such cultural messages affect taste perception, there had been no direct neural probes to test the effect, wrote the researchers. Findings about the effects of such cultural information on the brain have important medical implications, they wrote.
"There is literally a growing crisis in obesity, type II diabetes, and all their sequelae that result directly from or are exacerbated by overconsumption of calories. It is now strongly suspected that one major culprit is sugared colas," they wrote.
Besides the health implications of studying soft drink preference, the researchers decided to use Coke and Pepsi because-- even though the two drinks are nearly identical chemically and physically--people routinely strongly favor one over the other. Thus, the two soft drinks made excellent subjects for rigorous experimental studies.
In their study, the researchers first determined the Coke versus Pepsi preference of 67 volunteer subjects, both by asking them and by subjecting them to blind taste tests. They then gave the subjects sips of one drink or the other as they scanned the subjects' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In this widely used imaging technique, harmless magnetic fields and radio signals are used to measure blood flow in regions of the brain, with such flow indicating brain activity levels. In the experiments, the sips were preceded by either "anonymous" cues of flashes of light or pictures of a Coke or Pepsi can.
The experimental design enabled the researchers to discover the specific brain regions activated when the subjects used only taste information versus when they also had brand identification. While the researchers found no influence of brand knowledge for Pepsi, they found a dramatic effect of the Coke label on behavioral preference. The brand knowledge of Coke both influenced their preference and activated brain areas including the "dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" and the hippocampus. Both of these areas are implicated in modifying behavior based on emotion and affect. In particular, wrote the researchers, their findings suggest "that the hippocampus may participate in recalling cultural information that biases preference judgments."
The researchers concluded that their findings indicate that two separate brain systems--one involving taste and one recalling cultural influence--in the prefrontal cortex interact to determine preferences.
No hate...........................
I have NO hate for big corporations.........I admire them for the way they have advanced their own interest's over the last few years..............but I do not agree with their final goal, which is total dominance of the optical market with all its implications.
This thread is not ment to throw personal accusations at each other and which Cola is more fattening in all details.
It is more about how to survive bad economic times that are looming ahead. When people have no money or do not want to spend out of fear for the future. Are you just closing shop...........or are you looking for other solutions to get over leaner times?
Last edited by Chris Ryser; 04-14-2007 at 04:01 AM.
Did someone say OSA Lite- Optical Supply Of Asia :cheers:
Ugh, used them. Decent uncoated lenses, but don't tint them (could come out two different colours). Also, the AR will last about 6 months until the customer is at your door yelling at you.
Chris, can I ask you a question? What would you buy, a $250 DVD player from Sony, or a no name brand that you have never seen, from China for $200?
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