I got a phone call yesterday informing me that CZV product will no longer be available thru Essilor owned labs. This is for all CZV lenses and Teflon A/R coating. All other A/R product will still be available thru summer 2011.
I got a phone call yesterday informing me that CZV product will no longer be available thru Essilor owned labs. This is for all CZV lenses and Teflon A/R coating. All other A/R product will still be available thru summer 2011.
-Tony
You should have seen this coming. Would you have in their shoes go on forever to buy and sell your own direct competitions products while manufacture your own equivalents ?
That is part of the game when you want to fully dominate and control a market. It will get stricter with the rule to limit competitive products sold through their own lab chain.
Zeiss initiated it, I hear.
-Tony
Who is ZEISS? :)
Looks like 30 days for most Essilor Labs, 90 days if they currently have Zeiss A/R in house. One small step for man...about $6.2MM for ELOA and a bit less for Essilor Partner Labs.
No body in there right mind would purchase a Zeiss product from an Essilor lab anyway due to the exhorbitant prices Essilor labs charged for Zeiss products. Many labs use that as a deterent for useing a certain product price it high enough and they'll use a comparable product from "E". This is not just an "E" tactic every lab has lenses that they don't stock or manufacturers that they compete with that they carry product from and by pricing them higher it makes the practitionaer think twice about using the product. It is predictable:
E labs price CZV higher
CZV labs price E higher
HOYA well they price their stuff higher ;D
It's pretty simple I think as a profession we expect everyone to respect these imaginary boundaries in dispensing where only the ECP should dispense. Yet we give business to labs that have blurred the boundary between labs and lens manufacturers. When they are done assimilating all the labs then comes the next link in the food chain the ECPs, I see a few companies focusing their strategies on that very same thing now.
If I had to give preference to a manufacturers products, I would go:
Shamir
Zeiss
<---- A bunch of smaller lens companies (Vision Ease, Younger, Polycore, etc.)
HOYA
Varilux
I know the Zeiss model has labs as well, but they have the individual which is one of the best FF PALs for higher add presbyopes.
I know that the Zeiss reps changed from "business consultants" to "lab reps" (unoffically of course) a while back. Zeiss was picking up a few labs here and there, but not the scale that E was doing so. Maybe they ran out of money, I don't know, or maybe they figured they would slow down and see what the feedback of the lab consolidations was.
I too got a call from our "partner" lab about a year that the zeiss product was going up in price, but the equivalent E product is actually a few dollars higher. I have been a Sola, then Zeiss house, just FYI.
They did stop doing in house Zeiss and went with their own propriety name. They do have a new "coat" for the super hydrophobic lenses, so wonder where that came from!
Bottom line is that I use my lab because they do good work.
I'm glad you mentioned that because as a business move it might be shrewd. Many people are worried that "E" being the majory player will start swaying a practitioners lens choices towards there products and choice would be eliminated. I think a point in some of the law suits recently mentioned on this site has been to this effect. It could be that Zeiss is accelerating this notion and making it more evident sooner while the repercusions would be harsher.
I honestly don't see how a lens manufacturer can trust the quality of thier product in another lens manufacturers lab. It's like the wolf inviting the sheep out for lunch.
I learned that a lens is a lens.........today it is no more so..........it is an E or a Z lens and everything in between.
I also heard of a lens factory in China that manufactures lenses for the E and for the Z and probably others as well all under the same roof.
When they get here to this continent........................ they suddenly smell different and look different and cost different. :bbg:
Just another arguement to use your independant lab! There are several of us here in OB land and we are not beholden to any lens manufacturer.
Lee Prewitt, ABOM
Independent Sales Representative
AIT Industries
224 W. James St.
Bensenville, IL 60106
Cell : (425) 241-1689
Phone: (800) 729-1959, Ext 137
Direct: (630) 274-6136
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leep@aitindustries.com
More Than A Patternless Edger Company
Rumor has it that no Zeiss products in HOYA labs either. Welcome to the future, start sending business to these independent labs before you are told which lenses to fit and which ones not to.
No rumor, not in Essilor owned or Essilor Partner labs or in Hoya Labs as of June 2, 2010.
Isn't this the same format as european labs? It was my understanding that in europe labs sell one manufacturer. If you want Zeiss you call the Zeiss lab, Rodenstock another lab, etc. I could be wrong, what do I know about europe.
- Optician
- Frame Maker/Designer
- Teacher of the art of crafting handmade eyewear.
The effective date is July.
RT
All the major manufacturers have their own labs here, from which you order their lenses exclusively, but there are also plenty of independent labs which sell and supply whichever lenses they wish. I tend to deal direct, as I can usually negotiate a better discount.
However, Essilor have started to buy labs and lens suppliers here in the UK, which seems to be mirroring what's happening with you guys. A bit scary, cos my main suppliers are Essilor, Signet Armorlite (now Essilor) Nikon (49% Essilor) and WLC (49% Essilor) Obviously a few years back Zeiss swallowed Sola and AO, so the only other big boys left are Seiko, Hoya and shamir. Everyone else are bit players.
I juast wonder how large is the full market share of the bit player as per following statistics:
China (627)
Korea (143)
Taiwan (18)
India (16)
USA (12)
Turkey (7)
Hong Kong (5)
Thailand (4)
Australia (4)
Pakistan (4)
Total Lens manufacturers .......840
of course these figures also include the big boys, but there is also a whole truckload of others
all the country names are links where you can get more details on each one.
This is the drama I hinted at back on the first. I think it's a silly move. Nobody likes a snob.
Interesting that it is ONLY CZV lenses, not AO/Sola as well. Also, they are not taking any of the A/R coatings out of the labs, only the lens products.
It's 30 days for corporate owned labs, 90 days for parter labs before the products will no longer be available.
Here's the VM article: http://www.visionmonday.com/ViewCont...4/Default.aspx
There are rules. Knowing those are easy. There are exceptions to the rules. Knowing those are easy. Knowing when to use them is slightly less easy. There are exceptions to the exceptions. Knowing those is a little more tricky, and know when to use those is even more so. Our industry is FULL of all of the above.
-Tony
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