Our Frames
Click on a brand below to view the range of available frames.
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Are frame brands important?
There are over 900 frame brands for sale in Australia according to Eyetalk. As practice owners how are we to know which ones to stock? Everyday frame reps say "this brand is great, if you don't stock it you will miss out".
Recent research shows there is a way out of this confusion on frame brands. You need to stock the brands that matter and don't worry about the rest.
We conducted some research at C@ to see if our strategy of creating our own brands would work in the Australian market. We wanted to know what percentage of clients would go elsewhere if we didn't carry their favorite brand. As part of our market segmentation we called this group "Brand Boutiques". These are clients who want a pair of glasses that enhance their appearance and will only buy a particular brand.
We had staff at a number of optical stores classify clients and found that only 4% of clients were Brand Boutiques, the largest group was Non Brand Boutique 51%. Non Brand Boutiques want a pair of glasses that enhanced their appearance but didn't really care what the brand was so long as they looked good wearing them.
ODMA has recently released results of their latest survey. One issue studied was the importance of various factors in the purchase of optical frames. In their study, which has been replicated on 2 occasions, less than 1% of people purchase frames based on brand. The most important factor was "fashion" which ties in with motivation of the Non Brand Boutique.
Anecdotally, I have asked about 20 spec wearers if they could name a dozen brands of optical frames - most can only get up to about 4 or 5. The brands most frequently mentioned were: Gucci, Armani, Christian Dior, Dolce and Gabanna and Chanel
As practice owners we are bombarded by the idea that brands are an important part of selling frames, and if we don't stock the hot brands we will be missing out. The evidence suggests that we don't need to worry about brands very much at all. If want to be safe then just stock the handful of "Big Brands", otherwise just stock frames that your clients will like.
