Market research: Optimism back on the high street

The end of the calendar year presents an opportunity to review the key performance indicators over the past 12 months and see how they compare with the previous year’s, along with our monthly analysis. This is our third year of the change in the Index sample to only include independent practices and regional chains. In the year-on-year comparison we carried out last year there was very little change in the key performance indicators but this year we have seen positive annual growth in the number of eye tests, volume of spectacles dispensed and revenue.

As we have seen in the past, December is the most challenging month with falls in all performance measures from November apart from turnover per eye examination. More encouragingly, all of our benchmarks, with the exception of new contact lens fits, are higher than December 2014.