Lab & Retail- Does it work?

[partyoptician]

I'm currently a small (very smal) wholesale lab and I've been considering adding retail. I have 20 years of retail experience so thats not a problem. My concern is how my current wholesale clients will react. Any points of view or ideas would be welcome. Thanks:)

[optical24/7]

Simple, don't open a shop within 100 miles of your customer base, and don't tell a soul about it.;)

[renee1111]

I have experience on this subject. Word of advice: If you want to retain your wholesale customers DO NOT go retail. Are you making enough to get by, doing wholesale alone? I own and work at a wholesale lab (in business for 37yrs) our customers were always loyal. We were pumping out about 150 pairs a day, Essilor had offered to buy us, but we are family owned and wanted our kids to take it over someday, so we refused. This is when Essilor came to town and started offering a 60% discount on our price. (Which ended up being below our cost, we couldn’t compete) So we lost all our accounts virtually over night. We let the Optometrist know that since they weren’t supporting us anymore, we had to do something (AKA: Go retail) They laughed at us, saying “well we’re high end and you can’t touch us!” Well it has been 4 months since going retail, and we have never made so much dough! Wholesale is not what it’s cracked up to be, that’s for sure: getting yelled at all day by the Doctors secretaries, constantly paying for the dispensers mistakes, while your profit margins are maybe 10% and theirs are 50-100%!:angry: Our old accounts are very upset with us, but hey, yah got to do, what ‘cha gotta do! I have never been happier since going retail. :o So if you need a change and have a good marketing strategy, go for it! But if you’re just trying to add another source of income…definitely not a good idea!

[For-Life]

I would not buy from my competition.

[890890]

Of course it works. Not only lab compay should go for retail, frame company must go for retail today to survive! Just take your advatage, and go for it!

[Chris Ryser]

My concern is how my current wholesale clients will react. Any points of view or ideas would be welcome. Thanks

As you name is not Luxottica, Essilor or Zeiss who would not give a hoot if they decided to do such an action..................you will be disliked by your local optical customers and you will most probably loose some of them.

There are ways to go around such problems.
You can go around the problem by doing some retail directly out of your lab without an optical store.

By having a good sign advertising an optical laboratory above the door you can attract walk ins looking for a good deal.

[Chris Ryser]

I own and work at a wholesale lab (in business for 37yrs) our customers were always loyal. We were pumping out about 150 pairs a day, Essilor had offered to buy us, but we are family owned and wanted our kids to take it over someday, so we refused.This is when Essilor came to town and started offering a 60% discount on our price. (Which ended up being below our cost, we couldn’t compete)

Thsi is a most interesting post and would deserve its own thread.

I was always under the impression that they were straight forward buy out's the large corporations were doing. According to above post they seem to use Mafia tactis.

[MarcE]

Essilor had offered to buy us, but we are family owned and wanted our kids to take it over someday, so we refused. This is when Essilor came to town and started offering a 60% discount on our price. (Which ended up being below our cost, we couldn’t compete) So we lost all our accounts virtually over night.

Of course they didn't raise their prices after you closed, right? Of course they didn't - that would be illegal.