Viewpoint: Diary of a spectacle designer

Normally at this time of year I would be selling my frames like hot cakes. In fact, as a wholesale eyewear business, we usually enjoy two waves of high sales in a year. The first wave starts around February and peaks mid-April. By the end of April, the sales are in retreat and you have a good idea of how your year is going to turn out. It’s quite interesting really, when updating our sales forecast from May onwards to the end of the year, we can predict turnover with frightening accuracy.

Service levels, as well as the marketing in the previous calendar year, mostly seem to impact the sales in the following year. Once I see how well my new collection has been received by April we can pretty much predict the rest of the year’s performance and there is very little you can do to change anything.