My optician tends to dispense via drop shipping rather than from the board ie: instead of sending the dispensed frame to the lab she prefers to leave it on the board and has the manufacturer ship the frame to the lab. She claims that the advantage of this is that she has a better grasp of the inventory and that she doesn't have to constantly reorder frames for the board. I have seen some disadvantages: Mainly, there seems to be occasional lengthy delays on the part of the frame companies to ship to the lab (backorders etc). Sometimes I get hefty shipping charges on these piecemeal type of orders (often exceeding 15% of the entire cost of the frames). Lastly, on a few occasions the patients have noted that what they tried on in the optical shop did not feel like what came back from the lab (obviously it was not exactly the same). I have seen patients who were thrilled with the fit of a particular frame in the shop and yet very disappointed in the fit of the drop-shipped frame. My inclination would be to send the actual frame to the lab and reorder frames for the optical shop when they get depleted. Anyone have any opinions?

IH