On Wednesday, May 12, 2021 at 4:31:42 PM UTC+1, tim... wrote:
"R D S" wrote in message
...
On 11/05/2021 12:25, tim... wrote:


Oh does he :-)

I wonder if he might be able to comment upon how this business model
works then?

I can see from the invoice numbers that OSG don't sell glasses in huge
numbers, and at 15 pound a pair, the profit margin is going to tiny.

Yet (at least) one of his competitors can afford to advertise on TV.

How does that work then


To be fair it doesn't.

We have an 'actual' opticians that does OK and we supply wholesale to
other opticians too.

Yes I'd managed to work out that this was just one marketing channel for a
larger company and not just some guy trying to make an income for himself by
operating out of a shed

But I was still surprised by the limited traction that this retail item has
achieved

According to all the business gurus, "online" is the big new thing that
everyone should use to triple their sales and make their company worth
gazillions (there was one on last night's edition of "The Money Maker"
pushing that approach, - though I've yet to the end to see how it pans out).

OST seems to have achieved a reasonable presence in the marketplace, they
have 300 reviews on Trustpilot. As a comparison, a travel company that I
use where I can also see from invoice numbers that they have 50,000
customers per year (at substantially larger margins) also has 300 reviews.

OTOH Glassesdirect have 141,000 (I looked that up since I first asked the
question)

Though it wouldn't take much for this cheaper online sales channel to be
completely knocked on the head if high street opticians didn't charge such
absurd prices.
The website is a somewhat untapped resource. I should put more effort into
tapping it. It's harder than people might think though and at the margins
only really worthwhile if scaling up dramatically. One day perhaps.
surely there's a lot of work already expended in building the website, which
is wasted if there isn't enough footfall

what you need is better SEO - a search for "discount glasses online" sees
you nowhere (Even Specsavers, where the only online service that they offer
is appointment booking, scores better)
Incidentally we made the first few thousand pairs of specs for a
competitor who advertises on TV. I guess some of us were destined to work
making other people rich
I used to work for a small player in the mobile phone industry

They made more re-badged phones for a larger competitor than they made under
their own name

They are some companies that do nothing other than make products with
someone else name on
RDS from your glasses range, can you recommend ones for DIY use? Ta.