One or two goings on in eyewear retail have caught my eye recently. Bird Eyewear has announced that it is going to stop selling its ophthalmic frames via its website by the end of the year in order to work with its optician clients more effectively and more sustainably.
I’ve long been of the opinion that frame brands really don’t do themselves any favours when they sell direct to consumers through their own websites. It just creates awkward conversations and resentment on the part of the optician customers, and that’s when the brands aren’t undercutting them.
So it’s hats off to Bird Eyewear, that has taken the decision to remove ophthalmic inventory from its website. Given that the brand says it has tripled its optician client base in the past 12 months, it’s a decision that’s likely to go down well.
Rather ironically, Mykita has gone in the other direction, deciding to offer its ophthalmic frames online, albeit with very clear signposting to its optician partners and its handful of Mykita stores around the world.
That’s not what caught my attention, though. The new ‘Buy Less, Buy Better,’ and Mycare initiative taps into sustainability through conscious consumption – buying a better product at the outset and keeping it for longer through a dedicated care and refurbishment service.
Mykita products are obviously of a high quality, but as a business, encouraging consumers to buy fewer of them to improve their sustainability is a bold and brave move. It’s what everyone has been thinking, but very few have been emboldened to act on it.
Sadly, retail theft has been on the increase over the past couple of years, and it’s not big name retailers that are feeling the impact. To seasoned thieves, optical practices can be seen as a soft touch, with very little in the way of security and branded products that are easy to move on. More on the impact of practice theft can be found in this week’s In Focus on page 7.