you can become your own on-line optical................................

[Chris Ryser]

your largest World Wide lens supplier will help you..............................

Embrace the Power of the Web!

Eyecare Professional Information

The MyOnlineOptical service is an advanced new service from Essilor. The service is dedicated to independent US eye care professionals. Set up your own e-Commerce site in minutes and let your patients place orders for all their vision needs. Increase your revenue, improve your capture rate, and reach new patients. MyOnlineOptical will do the rest. [...]


Any discussion............................................

[optical24/7]

This isn't new. It's been around a few years now.

[coupe]

Chris,
This is E's way of gaining access to your client data (IMHO). It is very similar to the Transition contest. Buy a pair of transitions....fill in the card with your clients personal details and mail it back to E's. The big E's now has a complete list of your clients and can market them to death. Who says E does not have access to the working of your website. They set up the program. They created the software....can you SELL alternate or ADVERTISE alternate lenses than E's. Are you free to make use of indy labs. Can you recommend different types of coatings, AR or or other products without E taking notice.

[MikeAurelius]

Is Essilor entering the retail segment?

Essilor is not directly entering the retail segment. To the contrary, with MyOnlineOptical, Essilor is providing an additional service to the Independent ECPs to compete in an online environment.

heh...

[AngeHamm]

Chris,
This is E's way of gaining access to your client data (IMHO). It is very similar to the Transition contest. Buy a pair of transitions....fill in the card with your clients personal details and mail it back to E's. The big E's now has a complete list of your clients and can market them to death.

Hence my recycling bin full of Transitions contest cards.

[DanLiv]

Chris,
This is E's way of gaining access to your client data (IMHO). It is very similar to the Transition contest. Buy a pair of transitions....fill in the card with your clients personal details and mail it back to E's. The big E's now has a complete list of your clients and can market them to death. Who says E does not have access to the working of your website. They set up the program. They created the software....can you SELL alternate or ADVERTISE alternate lenses than E's. Are you free to make use of indy labs. Can you recommend different types of coatings, AR or or other products without E taking notice.

I see it as an Essilor attempt to get a piece of the online market while cutting in ECPs to keep us from getting too upset. I looked into it a lot and it's not a rip off, there is profit to the ECP, but it's very moderate. On the plus side Essilor takes care of 100% of the order fulfillment. The practice doesn't have any role in the process other than choosing what frame lines and lenses to make available on the site and what the fees are. Essilor guides frame and lens selection, processes payment, supplies frames, makes lenses, and ships to either customer or practice at the customer's option. Then Essilor cuts the practice a check each month for their cut. Since the practice does nothing it's all 100% profit.

However, the downside and the reason I didn't go with it it the same as the upside: I don't get any role in the actual order fulfillment. All the lenses are Essilor, and not the same lenses or quality I provide in my optical. The profit isn't enough to put my name on stuff I'm not making.

What would be really cool is a site like myonlineoptical (which has great infrastructure, powered by framesdirect) that does let the practice fulfill the order, and simply takes a cut of the sales or a monthly operating revenue. I would pay a company a percentage or ongoing fee to take care of the whole online process, since that's their expertise not mine, but I want to make the eyewear, since that's my expertise not theirs. I haven't found such a company yet.

[Chris Ryser]

Chris,

The big E's now has a complete list of your clients and can market them to death. Who says E does not have access to the working of your website. They set up the program. They created the software....can you SELL alternate or ADVERTISE alternate lenses than E's. Are you free to make use of indy labs. Can you recommend different types of coatings, AR or or other products without E taking notice.

coupe...........good comments

I do not operate an E website I have my own, and nobody is telling me or making me do something with my website with the exception of my business needs and some private fun occasionally. I could advertise anybodies lenses if they would want to and pay for some space to do so. That is the privilege of being independent and having to answer only to myself.

If I was looking to start a website I would never go into some suppliers system and be controlled from top to bottom. After 16 years of running a site I have learned some technical as well as political stuff to make it fairly visible to as many searches as possible. It is a lot of work. but also fun to see it statistically grow.

I did not start this thread to promote an E idea but to start a discussion on it and you came up with some good points and I also hope that some more comments will be made.

[coupe]

Dan l....Don,t forget that all important point that E makes and sends the eyeglasses to your patient. You did not see them....you do not know what was made....you did not re-check them....and you are the one RESPONSABLE FOR ALL THE DAMAGES because E is not licensed to dispense eyewear. Forget the part about sharing revenues,poorly selected frame choice,dis-satisfied clients,your company reputation and a whole slew of other possible problems. BTW...are the frame prices on their website less expensive wholesale, (let's say an A&A frame ) than you who pay if you bought it direct from A & A ? And I don't know about you but I can surely find less expensive FF / Ds lenses than those offerred at that website.

Chris
Maybe it is time, to milk your expertise, and start creating an optiboard members website , similar to E, but designed so that only the OB member can have access. It would be built in a similar fashion but each member could enclose his lab and set the prices he would cahrge, and all of the same frame companies could be on the site. OB members could pick the ones they want to deal with. Clients choose frame and lens online....pays for order online to ECP...lab makes and ships lens to ECP....frame company ships lens to ECP....ECP calls client for trial and measurments....everything OK ECP cauts lens on the spot and voila. If the frame is not appropraite the client can re-select from the ECP's in office stock.