On-line site for eyecare professionals- VisionWeb.com

[Pete Hanlin]

In the way of a disclaimer, Essilor is a partner (along with J&J, Marchon, and a host of other eyeglass lens, contact lens, frame, and service providers) in www.VisionWeb.com.

That said, this site is pretty darn interesting! Recently, my staff had the "opportunity" (though that's not exactly how they might describe it) to enter several hundred eyeglass orders into the VisionWeb system, and in the process I gained an appreciation of the benefits of this site.

At one site, your practice or shop can order frame inventory, contact lenses, orders from your local participating lab, etc. For the patient, there is an on-line directory of information on the eye and related health conditions. For the practitioner, there is information on the industry, recent clinical research, etc.

As a former lab manager, the on-line ordering from the lab appeals to me most. If your lab is participating, your order goes directly from your computer to your lab's processing software. This eliminates phone, writing, and transposing errors and speeds up order entry at the lab (basically, once you enter the job in VisionWeb, it is entered at your lab).

Anyway, if you haven't checked out VisionWeb, its an interesting concept. Several key manufacturers from virtually every aspect of the eye care marketplace are coordinating their efforts and resources to establish this as the future of product ordering.

[Optical Plumber]

It looks like a great site, but as far as I can tell, it is only open to the US market.

Does anyone know if and when they plan to expand to Canada, UK and the rest of the world?

Terry
:(

[cjyun]

I have tried to establish e-market place for optical industry in Korea since 2001. As you may know, Information Technology in Korea is well advanced and 8M BPS high speed internet connection is available everywhere. Over 60% of home and company have ADSL or Cable modem so e-commerce is getting popular.
We developed optimized software for optical shops and we are offering the software as ASP service so subscriber doesn't needs to buy the software and they use the software through high speed internet. So, they don't need to worry about DB backup, S/W upgrade, security. Actually, it was great concept. The software provides all Optician need to manage an optical shop or multiful shops such as inventory control, e-mail marketing, SMS marketing, home page and also provide e-commence.

But, the result is not as great as we expected. We are investigating the reason why and we are going to adjust our plan after.

[Johns]

Pete:

I enjoy the site, however, I was dissapointed at how easy it was to access the site w/out having to be a eyecare professional. I thought they might cross reference a trade account # or other ID, but all you had to do (as you already know) is just have a valid e-mail address. Still a great site though.

[Ryan]

Ive been using visionweb for awhile now, and for ordering it is great. I order most of my lenses from my lab and it gives me updates on where the job is, (surfacing, coating, shipped, etc) and if my job comes in wrong, I can print the order out and show them it wasn't my fault ordering.