I was doing some price-checking today, and discovered that WM now bundles AR coating on all their poly jobs !!!

Only kids and safetys have a choice of poly without AR.

If you aren't a kid or a safety and you don't want AR, they will make it without AR but you still have to pay the poly with AR price.

All this according to the Vision Center associate I talked to on the phone.

This got me to thinking...we, the competition, must be giving WM a run for their money! We are effectively competing against them to the point where they had to change something. They had to have a price increase. But they used the value-added strategy: raise the price on lenses but give something extra (AR) in return -- it looks like a value-added product. But it is in essence a price increase for WM, especially if some customers refuse the AR but still have to pay full price.

A bonus for WM is that for most of us eyewear providers, AR is a premium price option. The new challenge for us is how to compete with WM on this.

I do know that I haven't been impressed with any AR I've seen come out of WM.