Independent practices wishing to fight back against internet sales have been offered a new solution by the Korean-owned contact lens maker Clearlab.
Key to this strategy has been its offer to customers, even those with a single practice, the opportunity to provide private label contact lenses.
The lenses are branded to the name and design of the customer at no additional cost to buying Clearlab’s own brands. These are also less widely available on the internet than the big brands, said Dominique Gastaldi, the firm’s sales manager for Europe.
In the 18 months since Clearlab relaunched itself on the UK market, it has picked up more than 500 practices and three major buying groups, he said. The reason being a combination of its product portfolio, practices’ desire for an alternative to the multinational giants and Clearlab’s approach to helping independent practices combat unfettered internet sales.
‘Patients will take the ECP’s recommendation and they won’t find those products [private label] anywhere else. This is the best way to help opticians combat the internet.’
Private branding enables the practice to build loyalty with the customer and offer a lens that can’t be found online or substituted easily. He said many opticians were simply giving up on contact lenses because customers were being fitted and then lost to online or large-scale suppliers. He said the acquisition of Sauflon by Coopervision had helped Clearlab grow as some practices were ‘scared of having too many eggs in one basket’.
Gastaldi said practices had been impressed by the quality and price of Clearlab’s Hydrogel family of lenses and its Beyond-branded Silicone Hydrogel monthly and monthly toric lenses.
These have now been joined by a daily disposable silicone hydrogel lens and all of these products can be private labelled.