My New Year's resolution/strategic planning for future marginal profit improvements is to make my optical a fashion experience.
1. Optometry (for those who work in such an environment) is pretty dry, and getting drier. Heck, I'm a middle-aged plus white dude and I'm not exactly a fashion plate myself. New socks for Christmas and I'm good. Now, get off my lawn and I want to talk to you about vitamins for macular degeneration. Optometrists tend to want to be "real doctors", and will over-correct in that direction, unfortunately.
2. Boutique opticals are the wave of the future, I'm convinced. With all the McOpticals in the field (big box Cost-marts, strip mall America's Works, and of course the cyber-opticals) it's paramount to have a real, live optician (or a modern-day facsimile, more on that, later) in a real, live person-to-person interaction, in a real, live engaging environment. Think of that expensive spa where your wife used to get her hair done. Certainly in a stand-alone optical, but even within an optometry practice we need some spice.
3. While eye wear fashion has become tremendously more democratized since I've been doing this (1980's, yeah), meaning that you'd have to pay good money to not look like a dork, and now you don't, fashion is never going away. That's because (until you let yourself go, tsk-tsk) adorning your hot self is important to your image and identity.
(4. Hey, we're also in a tech field in a tech society. While the latest in tech isn't related to fashion, directly, it does appeal to those [cough, old/cold men, cough] that don't really care how they look. It's fashion for the ugly or disinterested. I'll set this aside for now.)
(5. And of course the customer service/relationship-building aspect is another key, but I digress.)
So, how do YOU make YOUR optical a wow-ing fashion experience?
Do you wear all black?
Do you have chandeliers?
Is your music upbeat?
Is your lighting bright?
Is your merchandising hot?
Is your inventory fresh?
Is your furniture trendy?
What do we need to do?
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