Store Profile: A Shop of a different nature

How one Colorado optician built the foundation for success on her own in an unusual space

By Erinn Morgan

The small space resonated with potential. In as little as 100 square feet, certified optician Tracy Henderson, ABOC, opened Eye.D., her very own high-end optical shop in Durango, Colo. Which just happened to be located inside the avant-garde Velvet Monkey hair salon.

Henderson went to get her hair done one day and saw a room and asked them what they'd think about her opening up in there. "They got back to me after a week and that was it. It snowballed from there," Henderson says. "I bought displays and furniture, went to market, and found out how to show a reasonable amount of frames in a small space."

Locking frame displays showed off up to 300 styles from a variety of high-end, style-driven brands. Whimsical furniture and artwork played off the eyewear theme and made the space, which was replete with natural light and high ceilings, exude an airy, welcoming feel. Her dispensary experiment is a model for making the most of what you have.

A HISTORY OF EXPERIENCE

Her optical industry expertise helped Henderson come up with a plan that worked. "I got my start as an optician in Albuquerque in 1984 with an OD there," she explains. "Then I moved to Austin, Texas, for about 15 years. I worked at Royal Optical, a chain of about 300 stores, and at Santa Fe Optical, an independent boutique in an artsy strip center. It was owned by an optometrist who had a medical practice in town."

It was Henderson's experience here that opened her eyes to a business model where the dispensary is separate from an optometric practice, the same concept behind Eye.D. She says that's why she knew it could be done that way.

LOCAL MOVE

This veteran optician also knows the ropes in the local market. Seven years ago, she and her husband moved to Durango, a burgeoning mountain town of about 15,000 people in Southwest Colorado, to enjoy the lifestyle of a smaller place where they could raise their kids.

She continued her optical career at Animas Eyecare. "It was a nice and service-oriented practice when I went there," says Henderson. "But, when I started, they didn't have a lot of nice product because they just didn't know it was there." Plus, she says it's hard to get frame reps there since they're so far from a major city.

After seven years of helping the dispensary build up its product cache and bottom line, Henderson was ready for a change. "My optometrist was one of the best employers in town," she says. "But there was nowhere to go from there. It was just a matter of getting bored."

At a crossroads, she began to put a lot of energy into her husband's business, but realized soon enough that eyewear was still her passion. "I was really at a turning point and was like, ‘Am I going to quit optical and focus on my husband's business?’"

She knew that she wasn't going to stay working indefinitely as an employee for someone else.

"But I really couldn't part with optical. I love fitting people with glasses and the technical aspect of lens fitting," she adds.

All these good reasons added up to the motivation for Henderson deciding to go into business for herself. She started small: "The very first thing I was going to do instead of getting out of the business altogether, was take a bag of frames and go around door to door and tell people I sell eyewear," she said.

As fate would have it, she instead walked into the local hair salon and saw a space that could work, which was also one she could afford.

BIG STRATEGY, SMALL SPACE

With a unique business model, location, product mix, and marketing strategy, Eye.D. made a name for itself in the local community. Here are some key points to take away from Henderson's successful approach.

Efficient displays: Do some research and comparison shopping when looking for displays.

Henderson found her displays at www.fixtures.com. For what they looked like, they were a great deal, she says. "They are compact and even came with lights and I only spent $1,500." She found the right plastic display units at International Vision Expo. "Pricing on them is phenomenally different from one to the next, so I suggest to shop around if you're in the market."

The right product mix: Pricing and product mix are key to a small dispensary's success. Hone in on who your target customer is and go from there. Henderson's product strategy at Eye.D. focused on medium- to high-end eyewear. She priced adult frames from $225 all the way up to $850 for jewelry-like pieces, and also stocked kids' frames that started at $160. She catered to the customer that appreciates high quality, unique product.

Smart selling: Communicate the value of the products you're selling. Henderson worked with customers one-on-one to help them understand why the eyewear they were considering was worth the price. "Present it with a break-down of what it will cost you per day," she suggests. "We all have that comfort zone of what we can fritter away every day. There are a lot of practical things about high-end eyewear, but, conversely, for the $500 dress, you're not going to wear it 365 days a year."

Targeted marketing: Find the right advertising and marketing strategy for your particular business. For Eye.D., the marketing was built right into its location. Henderson advertised in the daily paper, but the salon was just as great a reference, because every client every day saw her business. "You have to draw people in somehow," she says. She got a lot of traffic from the waiting area, which was right next to the room she was located in.

Henderson's efforts certainly have paid off. The dispensary has grown slowly but surely out of its initial creatively developed space and is now at a new, freestanding location in the same town, but with more space, including plenty of room to grow. EB