There can be no doubt about the thirst for knowledge among the general public for information on eyes and vision correction. This was vividly demonstrated with the launch last week of the eye care advice blog.
Within hours of being set up, this blog had attracted hundreds of questions from the public. These ranged from the Bates method, through laser surgery and varifocals to Transitions lenses. Within days the site was towards the top of the list provided by Google to anyone searching 'eye care advice'.
Along with the questions posed by the users there was another common theme - gratitude. Users wrote that it was the first time they had been asked what they thought about eye care or had been given the opportunity to ask basic questions about their eyes and vision. So who was the optical evangelist behind the site? It was an excited and somewhat bewildered-sounding Mark Bowden, who called the Optician office last week. Bowden is a Bolton-based optometrist who runs the internet retail site www.spex4less.com.
This website retails spectacles at low prices but its approach to internet retailing is a world away from many others. The site offers a mass of advice and engages users through personalised email contact. The scale of the success of the blog, designed as a way of talking to users, had clearly taken him by surprise. His main concerns were how the mass of questions might be answered and how to make use of the rich seam of interest he had, almost inadvertently, tapped into.