Fabris Lane pulls plug on independent sales

Fabris Lane has halted the roll-out of its optical frame collections to independent opticians after just six weeks.

The firm is withdrawing from practitioner promotion to independents and has laid off the newly appointed optical sales manager Sean Collins and the sales force employed to develop the independent market.

A statement from the firm said the market had not been as receptive as it had hoped and that it would wait until economic conditions were more stable. Tim Downes, Fabris Lane managing director, said: 'We entered the independent market and looked forward to opening new accounts throughout the country with our mid-market design-led product. Sadly, the market is not as receptive as we had hoped it would be at this time for new labels.'