Im curious if anyone has heard about any downtick in lenscrafters business now that they are closing their labs (at least they have here in GA)?
Im curious if anyone has heard about any downtick in lenscrafters business now that they are closing their labs (at least they have here in GA)?
Closed a few weeks ago..in house labs..I called one store asking about turn around time for broken glasses..I was told 7 -10 days....yikes!
My understanding is that LC was closing their retail labs region by region, like they did with their Pearl acquisitions. The LOMs were expanding and taking orders from these locations.
I was also under the assumption that LC would be building regional labs to take the stress off of the LOMs as they closed down their retail labs and their plan was to keep the turn times to less than 3 days. Part of this decision, I heard, was their inability to process freeform in a 1 hour environment without a tremendous capital investment. This makes perfect sense, as freeform and AR go hand in hand. Did I hear incorrectly?
Makes sense to me in terms of surfacing labs, but finishing?
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Yes they are doing this. They beta tested it in TX (Austin area I think) and last I heard are planning roll-out to lower volume stores first then higher volume. 2 day turn is the target, but LC built their customer base on same day service. I cant see their customers being very happy when they cant have their glasses same day.
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Definitely will be ending up with a different customer base. They are now moving towards an online refraction/essilor designed "online friendly" progressive design, Fashion Brand Frame (TM).
I'm not scared. If my clients ever want me to be a Mechanic and charge labor on top of the "parts" they provide me, bring it.
Interesting to hear. Just expect a lot of changes with that chain before and after the official takeover by Essilux in a few month time.
I also predict that the LC stores will also become the first service stations for their now 20 online opticals, they own globally, and more coming up.
It is happening across the country. Georgia, parts of Texas, Las Vegas, parts of Califronia, parts of Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, South Carolina have all seen in house labs shut down. (Pittsburgh for example saw the 3 highest volumes stores for that region lose their in house labs). With the recent construction/opening of their new facility in Atlanta, eventually most if not all Lenscrafters stores will lose their in house labs
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Wow- that's quite interesting. On some level I am saddened to see the "in about an hour" marketing strategy go away but selfishly so because I was one of the LC soldiers that helped build that company from a small up-start, oops I mean start-up, LOL, to the billion dollar powerhouse they were before Lux came in to play. Wow, that's going to leave some of the original locations with a LOT of unused square footage. At least until they can re-negotiate their leases and down size a bit. Some of the early stores- first 500 or so were 5k-6k square feet. Time to reach out to my LC buddies and find out what the hell is going on these days.......
I confirmed with a LC employee, and he confirmed it. They have also dropped the General Manager title and have changed it to Marketing Manager.
Last edited by LensGrinder76; 06-07-2017 at 02:34 PM.
This thread has become the most newsworthy on OptiBoard, over the last little while.
Just figure how many people have, or will lose their jobs with this major change, in a business with over 5000 stores in the USA, Canada and worldwide, as well their major suppliers for lab supplies.
If you try to follow the fact, that their present and future owner partnership is planning and adjusting to a major future change in the optical retail business.
They are also the owners of the largest single block of 19 separate optical internet retailers, worldwide.
The president of Essilor has also declared 7 days ago, that
that the USA/Canada optical internet retail market, along with India (the most populated area), are the best producing ones.
The LC stores are being adjusted to what the owner's scientific market research recommends, and it might be a super idea, to watch them closely reorganising, to adapt to the future.
I can also confirm from a fellow LC lab manager about the rumors of the labs closing down but will add that they are consolidating lab work as well. Meaning, using my friend's location for example, that LC is using labs located far, far out of state or one lab for a region. Does not bode well for their jobs.
The LOMs will sure get busier. They can't even deliver in a timely fashion now, let alone taking on hundreds of extra stores and deliver in 2 days.
When the rumors first started floating, the plan of action was to acquire/create smaller Regional Labs across the country. Anyone know if this is still the plan, or are they continuing with the LOM plan? Even if they open Regional Labs, there will still be a lot of techs out of work.
We already know this part. They have been busy acquiring labs across the country and folding them into the Lux culture, calling them Luxottica Optical Manufacturing, hence LOM. Most have been Essilor partners before being 'managed' by Lux. Question is, how many others will Essilux try to acquire, or will they build smaller Regional Labs to handle the additional business?
As for your previous post, I do agree. LC storefronts (and Sears, Target, etc) will end up being service centers for all of the Evil Empire's online business. Perhaps, they will bump up their retail staff to accommodate this? If so, maybe 15% of their lab staff will still have jobs.
There are now some super modern last style labs in the far east, from Thailand to China and India. All lens brand names have also their largest lens factories in Thailand that can supply instantly.
Instant Electronic communication, overnight delivery services by the well known courier services UPS/Fedex/DHL, at special low rates for the right customers.
Businesses with 24 hour shifts can supply within hours of order, and ship by couriers that can get lab orders back to North America within 24 hours ready for local delivery.
Local service labs could exist today equipped with bevel edging and servicing for some stock lenses.
Times have changed drastically, but there has never been much interest on this continent to find out what is happening on the international scene.
I don't mind them catering to the online purchasers- those aren't my clientele. It will be wonderful to not have the competition for same day service though!
I do wonder though what the local techs will do... are they going to try and just have a store full of dispensing opticians or are they cutting people loose? I can't imagine that many people would relocate to a regional lab if even given the option.
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When I worked for Lux, they were pretty good about relocating when a Pearle and an LC closed in a relatively short amount of time. Most people were given a chance to move around to chronically understaffed Target locations, or other LC positions. It will probably require a fair amount of those people to change their role within the company. I also can't imagine that much of a semi-skilled workforce not being cross-trained in anticipation.
However, dumber things have happened, and layoffs do save (short term) money.
Looking forward, and knowing that the Essilux Corporation does deep studies into the future of the online market of anything, specially including the optical retail trade, you can find enough results that would define above statement as invalid.
The older generation of the population that is not computer savy is dying off gradually. The younger generations have already been purchasing as much as they could online, for many years.
If we actually believe that the optical retail market will not lose out to them without major adjustments to their operations, we are dreaming in colors. Right now they are claiming, that they are reaching already 15% of the market, and are continually increasing that number.
The first to act in major changes to the system, seems to be the LC chain and their over 5000 stores on a worldwide basis.
At least at this point, I know my current position is not under attack. 10-15-20 years down the road that may be a different story, but I work for a small business it will not be around forever. Who knows were I will be when the potential threat becomes real.
Our client base is growing. Every week we hear online horror stories and see first hand what people are receiving in the mail. Those people and their friends and family and co-workers come to us. We have a huge word-of-mouth advantage from years of establishing customer service and product that makes it worth the price.
Not all millennials are wanting the 'best' deal. Heard of hipsters? They want to spend money. Welll, just so happens I have a revived Cazal Legends you can slap on your face for $600. And they sell. Not to the older gen who won't order online- I have lines catered to them as well- but to the millennials.
I don't doubt some day things will change. I'd be blind to not see the changes happening now. I'm just saying the steps being taken can also offer us small guys some advantages- like less competition in the retail field.
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Have I told you today how much I hate poly?
OptiBoard is also a history book, and you can look up old threads and posts, dated when they were submitted.
There somewhere it said in 50 - 75 years or more things will change.
Technology is changing faster than anybody would and could predict 10 years ago, and the world situation is going backwards to the middle ages, with all those terrorist attacks endangering our lives anywhere possible.
Opticians have always been very conservative thinkers professionally.
Yeah, the title change has been made with no direction. No one knows what it means because LensCrafters has not given any direction or purpose to the title. It is evident there is a loss of leadership as changes are being made with no real purpose. For instance, the rumors of labs closings are all over the place but the "upper-ups" are acting stupid and in turn are asking people "what have you heard?" GM's, excuse me Marketing Managers, are stepping down and fed up with the ruthless micro-managing that is going on. They no longer run the business or manage anymore, they are dictated to and have been told to leave if they don't like it. Not sure how things are in everyone's neck of the woods, but here in the South, morale is deteriorating.
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