Frames at Work: Setting Your Boards

Controlling your frame inventory can help keep your practice's money out of “jail”

By Amy Spiezio

While human beings keep the wheels of a practice running, each frame on your board is also a part of the office team that can make your practice rich—or cost you dearly.

“A well-run, well-stocked dispensary is a revenue generator. A poorly stocked, poorly run dispensary is a jail for your money,” says Mary Rose Jaszczynski, business development manager at ClearVision Optical.

Putting the focus on controlling frame boards can help improve a practice's patient focus while building its bottom line.

PONDERING PRESENTATIONS

Frame inventory comprises a significant amount of a practice's budget. Representing a $30,000 or more investment in many dispensaries, losing control of inventory can result in losing cash.

“There are a couple of different business models out there, and I have seen them all work and not work,” says Jan Corey, senior vice president domestic sales, U.S. and Canada, for Viva International Group.

■ CREATING A SET BOARD. A fixed frame board is one that is selected and arranged for semi-permanent display. Each time a patient selects a frame style, a fresh frame is ordered to fill the purchase.

“I definitely think that everyone should have board samples; they are important. In the past, you would wait for reps and you just bought whatever you wanted. It was disorganized. But eyewear is a really important fashion accessory today and the consumer is demanding a little more from their shopping experience,” says Victoria Hallberg, Marchon's director of brand sales.

Part of providing that experience is to ensure that the frame boards are full for maximum shopping opportunities. “Display boards are just that. You are ordering the patient's dispensed frames and having them delivered. The board stays full, it stays assorted the way you like. It saves dispensing time and it makes for a much more efficient dispensary,” Jaszczynski says.

Marchon's Hallberg notes: “You have chosen that product mix for a good reason—you have a good assortment to have a good offering— so you want to keep that always.

“It really helps you to know what's selling. You can see what's selling and make faster adjustments, and you can see what's not and be able to move it out,” she adds.

Keeping a set frame board also helps take emotions such as boredom out of the frame buying equation. “People think, ‘I don’t want to see the same things on my board. But the person who buys in January will not be back for a year. To the person who walks in tomorrow, it is all new,” Jaszczynski says.

■ SELLING OFF THE BOARD. Some practices sell directly off their boards, providing customers with the sample frames they pulled during their try-on time.

While there will always be pieces in your discount area that are ready to go directly off the board, basing your inventory system on this method may be problematic.

Working off the board may help some keep track of what's selling simply by filling in the blanks, others say this isn't the most cost-effective way of managing inventory.

Potential headaches from this include backorder and re-order issues, and the basic fact that there are empty spaces on board. More than maintaining an aesthetically pleasing full display, selling off the board might impact your bottom line. The fact is, if a frame is not on display, it's far less likely to be sold.

“If five frames sell within the first week, but you wait 10 to 12 weeks until your frame rep visits to reorder,” Jaszczynski observes, “you have lost 10 to 12 weeks of having high-performance frames on your board.”

GOODBYE, HELLO

It's advisable to analyze your frame board assortment two times a year at a minimum, but three to four times is ideal. “It's like employee reviews—you want to review them to make sure they are working for you. It's the same with inventory,” Jaszczynski notes.

A planned out display is eye-catching and easier for dispensers to evaluate on a regular basis to determine optimal turns. Image courtesy of Alain Mikli

“It's imperative to have some sort of regularly scheduled evaluation of what's happening in the dispensary. You may have thousands of dollars on your board. Reviewing no less than quarterly is key to keeping it productive,” Viva's Corey says.

When getting down to evaluating, look at how many pieces turned and how often.

“Look at all of the inventory so you can compare how the lines perform. It's a retailing way of thinking, but it's a way of driving profitability,” Corey advises.

Analyzing your data could result in surprises about the brands you think you know, especially regarding their life cycles. “You might have a brand that was really popular last year, and it's not as popular today. That's where you might make adjustments,” Hallberg says. “You might move it out for a year. You should always be looking at what's out there.”

There will also be some frame collections that have served their purpose and are no longer elevating sales. If a collection has been out for a long time, Jaszczynski suggests tracking it for six months. If there's little to no activity, it's time to think about making inventory changes.

Starting a new collection can be rewarding if you give it enough time to find its place in your dispensary.

This is particularly true of brands that have never been exposed to consumers before, such as house or new brands, Jaszczynski says, noting: “Sometimes, if you're putting in a new brand, you might have to give it a longer period of exposure.” EB

Shop it Fresh!

One way of evaluating your boards is to head out of the dispensary and see what is happening in the clothing retail market.

“A good way to keep a gauge of which brands are relevant is to go where your target consumers are shopping, and you should be carrying that,” Victoria Hallberg, director of brand sales for Marchon says.

This should be done hand in hand with evaluating your in-store sales, which might not always reflect general retail trends. “In eyewear even if the brand is still relevant, the product might not be right,” Hallberg adds.

Turn, Turn, Turn

When it comes to product, understanding what is selling will make or break your dispensing operations. “The most important product a dispenser can buy is a product that sells,” says John Blake, sales director at Safilo. There are a few rules of thumb when it comes to inventory turns in the optical dispensary.

■ Three to four turns per year is the goal, but two to three is more what it's been like lately,” says Mary Rose Jaszczynski, business development manager at ClearVision Optical.

■ In some offices, if the opticians like a style—if it's quality, fits well, and comes in lots of colors—they will sell it more,” says Victoria Hallberg, director of brand sales at Marchon.

■ Turns affect profitability, and some products are designed to have a turn of six, seven, or eight, and some are designed to have a turn of one,” Blake says. “On average, 2.5 is acceptable.”

■ “For a top-selling style, average turns range from 20 to 60 times per year,” Hallberg adds.