The way we do things now is to develop a bit of a "formulary" for PALs that we use, or coatings, or high index materials and price them individually (ex: PAL "brand A" is $234, PAL "brand B" is $245, etc. AR coating "C" is $99, AR coating "D" is $105, etc.)
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to make big lumps, such as:
Budget PAL: $x
Traditional PAL $xx
Custom PAL $xxx
and then just use whatever lens in that category that we want.
Same with coatings:
Budget AR: $x
Premium AR: $xx
and so it goes.
What's more, our print outs would be "brand free".
There are pros and cons to this. On the one hand, using all the jazz marketing that essilor or Shamir (essilor) or Zeiss put out does kind of show that you're using high-quality products. "Crizal...the only AR in the world that matters". "Transitions...wow". "Varilux...whatta design!" Hey, leverage their marketing dollars. Show them that you're not some awful online optical or a big box of bleh.
The cons would be that the patient may become slave to a brand, and less dependent on you to sort through the marketing junk that's out there and present the "best options", "forget the rest options". As Johns (may he rest in pieces) used to say "YOU are the brand...belch". Lenscrafters used to do this, too (when they actually mattered).
What do you do?
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