As high street shoppers start looking beyond price as their main consideration, Clare Rayner, author of The Retail Champion, has outlined ten steps optical practices can take to ensure success. She was presenting last week at the launch of a campaign for Essilor’s Crizal UV lenses as the new sponsor of ITV Weather.
1. Goal and Mission
Personal goals and those of the business are often closely linked for practice owners, Rayner said, but need to established from the offset. She recommends drafting out a mission statement to define boundaries, both in terms of price and area.
2. Positioning
Practitioners must work out where they are relative to their competition set, in terms of product, price, presentation and service. ‘Turn all the arrows upwards if you are an independent brand,’ Rayner said. Each element of the brand should be pitched at the same level.
3. Picture your ideal customer
Creating a persona of the ideal customer makes every other business decision much easier, Rayner said. Look out for patient demographics close to the defined persona as at times they will demonstrate similar habits.
4. Range planning
‘Will you carry an awful lot of branded frames or just stock a select few with every single combination?’ Rayner said such product decisions were central to the positioning of the business.
5. Pricing and promotion
When there is value to be added consumers are showing an increased willingness to react to the bells and whistles. ‘Even though you have defined your ideal customer there will have days of the year when they have more or less to spend,’ Rayner said. Consider discounts carefully including the possibility of clearing old stock through Ebay rather than on the shop floor.
6. Channel and location
Positioning on the high street is key so find out the shopping habits of target patients. It was also worth assessing how they use the internet and planning online presence accordingly.
7. Customer engagement
PR and marketing was key to bringing everything together, including the promotion of new lenses. ‘What you are getting with a partner brand such as Essilor is a lot of that PR and marketing done for you,’ Rayner said. Both the importance of an eye test and the spectacles as a fashion statement represented further opportunities.
8. Supply chain
Rayner pointed out how suppliers in some sectors were now by-passing retailers altogether with their own web stores. She said it was ‘heartening’ to see Essilor working closely with independent practices and forming partnerships. ‘You’ve got to think about the different ways you select suppliers. It must be so much more than just product and price,’ she added.
9. Planning and controlling
Rayner encouraged optical businesses to monitor their progress by accessing data and to ‘pull levers to enhance profitability’.
10. Back office
Setting up the right infrastructure, such as HR, legal and IT staff was deemed crucial as each of these functions would made retail businesses more efficient.
More information and insight from Clare Rayner’s The Retail Champion, 10 Steps to Retail Success, can be found here.
