Focus on Safety Eyewear

Success with Safety

by Erinn Morgan

Where are ECPs turning in today's highly competitive times to bolster profits? Interestingly, a large number are looking to safety eyewear as a category with lots of potential. In fact, ECPs ranked safety eyewear as the fifth fastest-growing frame product category in the dispensary, according to the Eyecare Business 2011 Market Trends Study.

How can ECPs get started with this booming specialty category? According to safety eyewear veteran Cindy Parker, owner of Eyes in Motion in Greenville, South Carolina, the first step is to develop relationships with local industrial companies.

“We work with a variety of businesses, from body shops with two employees to major companies such as Michelin and GE that have over 4,000 employees in one facility,” she says.

Parker has spent years cultivating her business' relationship with these companies. “We did research to pinpoint the best ones to target,” she says. “Then I just went door to door. It took eight years to get my foot in the door at Michelin; a lot of it isn't what you know but who you know.”

But Eyes in Motion has a highly unique business model that makes it easy to market their specialty services. In addition to the home store, Parker operates two mobile dispensing trucks that travel within a 250-mile radius to sell (and service) safety eyewear to the employees of the companies with whom they work.

The next step is to stock the right plano and Rx-able safety eyewear assortment. At Capital Eye Care in Boise, Idaho, optician Teri Fullmer says customers “like more style-oriented looks.” As such, they display a solid selection of good-looking safety eyewear while keeping a tray of more traditional styles in a drawer.

Carrying an assortment of safety eyewear in-store can also help grow ophthalmic eyewear sales. “Those patients who come to us for safety eyewear almost always send the rest of their family here,” says Fullmer.

Finally, Parker notes that it's also important to know as much as possible about the businesses you service with safety eyewear. “I make sure I understand their manufacturing processes,” she says. “I've taken tours of most of the companies we work with.”

It's clear that with the right assortment and relationships in place, ECPs can look to safety eyewear as a new profit center.