Three quarters of independent practitioners are positive about the coming financial year, according to a latest survey.
The survey conducted by Sight Care and Johnson & Johnson Vision Care found 74 per cent of respondents said they believed their business would grow year on year in the coming period.
More than half did not see larger multiples as a threat, while 40 per cent believed the chains made their job easy to differentiate.
Sight Care reported 60 per cent of those surveyed believed the market would eventually polarise between dispensing and more clinical services.
Nonetheless, two thirds of the survey respondents agreed the independent sector was in decline overall. Three quarters of respondents said contact lenses currently represented a fifth or less of their turnover.
Paul Surridge, chief executive of Sight Care, said: ‘The survey highlighted a number of areas for improvement acknowledging that independents were not maximising their opportunities in dispensing contact lenses.
‘Contact lenses offer terrific potential for revenue growth, and we would encourage independents to encourage as many patients as possible to trial them and importantly provide all the support necessary to avoid drop out. A London Business School European research project some years ago unequivocally proved that a combination of spectacles and contact lenses delivers far more profit over the longer-term than spectacles alone.’
A lack of practice PR and promotion was also highlighted in the results, with more than two thirds of practices saying they rely wholly on referrals for new business.