Last summer a rare thing happened to the optical profession. An outsider came along and told it that the way it sold glasses was wrong. What's more the popular media agreed. James Murray Wells tells Rob Moss why his company Glasses Direct is here to stay
There are few people involved in selling glasses who have not followed the well-worn paths through optometry or dispensing colleges. So who would have predicted that a 21-year-old English graduate would have caused much ado about something like James Murray Wells has managed in the past eight months?
In that short time, he has challenged not only the might of the multiples, but also the entire business model upon which optics is built.
The story of how Murray Wells started Glasses Direct will be known to most readers already ... student needs new glasses, is shocked at price, researches market, finds that cost price is less than £7, sets up website.
The business began with a few flyers handed out in Bristol and the message spread by word of mouth until a Daily Telegraph journalist ran with the story on August 18. By September 1, the publicity from the 'silly season' article, as one industry commentator dismissed it at the time, had snowballed. Murray Wells appeared on radio and TV and the message was spreading.
Since then, other than a slight copyright hitch with product images used on the site, everything has gone exactly the way a dot-com entrepreneur would want it to.
Last month saw another wave of publicity: when you suddenly start offering people a product for around 5-10 per cent of the price people are used to, the press will sit up and take notice.
The difference between last August's publicity and that of the past few weeks, says Murray Wells, is that last summer it did not focus so much on the price. 'At no point have we actually pushed this publicity on the price of glasses being at an extortionate level. This is something the press have picked up on. We've sold the story of our business and they've gone out and done the research and decided the price of glasses is extortionate.'
What has riled much of the profession, however, is how few column inches have been allocated to explain why opticians use such high margins on their product, ie to subsidise the cost of their professional time. So does he agree with the popular media's opinion that high-street opticians routinely profiteer?
'The kinds of margins that we're talking about in glasses are much more than the average consumer would expect from a retail product. But we know why that is. Whether or not I think that the prices are justified is a different matter. I mean, of course I'm aware that opticians have other overheads to fund and whatever else, but on the surface of it they are hugely inflated prices.'
Murray Wells believes that until opticians introduce a system whereby the patient pays a fair price for professional time and for products, they will always be susceptible to rip-off allegations.
'Free eye tests' and the £18.39 reimbursed by the DoH for NHS sight test both only serve to devalue the optometrist's input into the healthcare system. 'Then the emphasis changes from being on the optometrist to put up his fees to being on the Government to put up the remuneration.
And I think there would be some serious weight there, opticians have to stand up for themselves in this respect.
'My guess would be if the consultancy fees were put up and opticians stuck to it and held resolute then the Government would be forced to pay for it.'
None of this, however, is Murray Wells' problem, as he looks at it from the consumers' point of view. Multiples' buy-one-get-one-free offers ... which he describes as 'patronising' ... only serve to confuse consumers. 'Customers won't understand why they can get £15 glasses from Glasses Direct and why they have to pay £90 for the same pair at Boots. They won't understand why opticians can afford to give away one pair of glasses, if the first one costs £100.
'There's a serious case here, not just for business model change, but also for honesty and integrity when dealing with patients. The customer is being deceived into believing that they're paying for something that they're not. There's a serious case here of non-transparencyÉif opticians are going to be honest with their patients, then they're going to make the glasses at normal retail price and they're going to make the sight test at the correct fee.'
CATALYST FOR CHANGE
So could it be that Murray Wells' business and the recent spate of rip-off allegations from the national media might in the long-term provide the profession a helping hand? By offering a catalyst that might see reform in the way the NHS handles eye care?
'I'm here to create a great business, to establish Glasses Direct as a robust steadfast business model in the public eye and something that is a long-term, achievable, workable solution to internet dispensing. As an offshoot to that we might do [optometrists] a favour if they take the hint that they need to be charging a professional fee in relation to the services they give.
'I'm not going to be the one beating the drum for these guys, there are other people that do that. I'm just observing and I make the observation that there seems to be a very confused issue of pricing and a very illogical issue of cross-subsidisation. Both of these need to be sorted out for the benefit of the patient, the optician and ultimately the NHS.'
KEPPING THE LAW
The profession's problem with Murray Wells is not just his low prices, but how he keeps them low. Where is the professional input that drives up high-street spectacles' costs?
From the beginning, he has strived to ensure that his operation is lawful. The Opticians Act requires that a person will not sell an optical appliance unless 'effected by or under the supervision of a registered medical practitioner or registered optician'.
And this, according to Murray Wells, is exactly what Glasses Direct does. 'We have up to four dispensing opticians at any one time who will become involved with every single order, a minimum of one. We have in our employment, opticians who are contractually obliged to supervise the dispensing of all our glasses. Whether they are at our call centre or whether they are at the laboratories we use is of absolutely no difference to the customer. Wherever they are along the sales process they are still in a position to intervene, to accept or reject the order, to ask for more information. They are still in a position to supervise the entire sale of that order, it doesn't matter which office they're in.'
Reports that the GOC was 'formally considering' a complaint made by Boots Opticians professional services director David Cartwright have only been greeted by 'no comment' from a GOC spokesman. Indeed the entire topic of internet dispensing was out of bounds in a recent discussion between optician and the GOC.
Cartwright asserts the 'supervision' requires a physical presence in the location of the sale. He also believes a process whereby the patient transcribes details of their Rx into a website with a self-measured PD or an average PD 'cannot amount to proper supervision'.
First, Murray Wells says he has not been contacted by the GOC and makes the point that Cartwright is a competitor, not a customer, of Glasses Direct. 'That should send alarm bells ringing at the GOC.'
On the reported complaint Murray Wells says: 'I assume he's saying that we would benefit from qualified and experienced contact with our customers. But Cartwright knows just as well as I know that many high-street opticians are fronted by entirely unqualified members of staff. So there is a touch of irony about the whole situation anyway.
'On that note, it should be pointed out, although we are not, and I'm absolutely confident of this, legally obliged to have a dispensing optician in our call centre, we are actually going to the lengths of employing one. I am in the final stage of interviewing and selecting a candidate for the role.'
Even if there's someone in the lab, even if they're in the call centre, can you still argue that that is supervision when there is no physical contact between the practitioner and the patient?
'Well yes. I mean not only is the entire sales process supervised, but also the whole policy by which we operate is drawn up in conjunction with dispensing opticians. Essentially everything that the customer sees and every interaction that it makes with our company has been regulated by a dispensing optician.
'We provide advice on how they [the patients] should wear [their spectacles] and how to make small adjustments. If you can trust a customer to operate an electric cooker or operate a hearing aid, then you can apply the lesser levels of common sense to make minor adjustments on your glasses. We are not going to patronise our customers, they do not have to go into an opticians and be charged £30 for someone to adjust a nose-pad. The small adjustments on a pair of glasses is not rocket science.'
Few doubt that simple adjustments to poorly fitting frames can improve matters, but what about the optics, what about the PD? The topic immediately reminds him of Specsavers co-founder Mary Perkins' letter to the Daily Mail (News, optician, January 21).
He says he finds it extraordinary that Specsavers ... which was once in a similar position approaching an apprehensive market ... could go on the record and say Glasses Direct has no consideration for the customer's PD.
'We recommend to all our customers very clearly that they should have their PD measured by an optician, simple as that. That is our line and is something that opticians will do and it's something that they should do.'
But do they have to? 'They're not legally required to but are you suggesting that they will negate their duty of care and not provide a measurement if they were asked to?'
ABDO general secretary Tony Garrett recently advised his members to only provide PDs and make adjustments to spectacles for a fee. Murray Wells doesn't have a problem with this, although the idea of making the calculation in terms of the matter of seconds taken to measure a PD amuses him.
'I totally agree with [Tony Garrett], they should charge a proper fee for that and I'd be willing to suggest what a proper fee should be. I would suggest that it should be done by someone qualified.'
Glasses Direct used to advise its patients to (a) get their PD measured by their optician, failing that (b) get a friend to measure it, failing that (c) use the average PDs of 63mm (distance) or 60mm (reading). It has now scrapped (b) under the advice of its dispensing opticians.
Nevertheless the accusations of the ramifications of poor fitting glasses caused by inaccurate PD are still thrown in his direction. He has a simple retort, however, believing a greater problem is the number of people who defer a spectacle purchase routinely on cost grounds.
'That's a much bigger issue than the very unlikely chance that any of our glasses might be of a pupillary distance to cause them any sort of ill effects.
'We're providing pairs of glasses here where we're not taking extreme prescriptions, we're not taking prismatic measurements, we're not taking spheres over 8.00D.'
Murray Wells even hints that he may campaign for the PD to be included in the prescription received by the patient. Other plans include the expansion into contact lenses, designer eyewear, sunglasses, and at some point he also envisages Glasses Direct having a laboratory of its own.
LINKS WITH LOCAL OPTICIANS
He is also in talks with opticians nationwide to set up an alliance whereby patients with problems with their glasses can visit a local optician.
This is particularly in relation to bifocals and Murray Wells says it could in future facilitate the introduction of varifocals.
'We want to offer our customers a full aftercare service on demand. Should they have any worries they can go and see someone face to face.'
The company has already proved many of its critics wrong. Whether it will continue to will partly depend on the reasons behind the GOC 'no comment' stance. If Glasses Direct continues to operate without a legal challenge from the powers that be, it won't be long before other companies try their hand at virtual dispensing. So far, similar websites (page 20) have caused Murray Wells few sleepless nights, but what if an established name was to set something similar up?
'I'm not frightened of competitors. The idea that Specsavers might set one up is very exciting.'