So you want to create a private label eyewear brand?

Are some of your frame options burning a hole in your showroom wall? Does your optical showroom feel more like a fitting room than a sales hub? Are wholesale prices for frames on the market not promising the return on investment you were hoping for?

Diana Canto-Sims, OD, who sells her custom frame line La Vida eyewear at her practice Buena Vista Optical in Chicago, Illinois, posits the avenue of building a private label collection as an opportunity for practice owners to stand out and bring a competitive edge to their optical sales. She sat down with Mark Graham, founder and chief creative officer for Your Brand Eyewear; Travis LeFevre, founder of LFVR Eyewear; Nancy Gries, export sales manager at Logoproject Eyewear; and Edward Choy, partner at Sho Eyeworks, to discuss the offerings and benefits that the companies have to offer practice owners.

Canto-Sims: What are the benefits of creating a private label?

Graham: There are actually many benefits. Obviously, the initial one is the cost savings, because we all know that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. Point A, the factory, to point B, you, the retailer. Unfortunately, today it is point A; point B, which is the designer with their royalties; and point C, which is the wholesalers to you. It adds to the cost. It adds tremendously to the cost. My aim was to eliminate that curved line and to straighten it out. Our frames are shipped directly from our factory to the retailer. So there is a price savings.

The other thing is when you speak about designer frames, yes, some people come in specifically asking for designer frames, and you need them. But the problem with today is we live in a world that is a digital world. We have iPhones in our pockets, the most powerful computer ever, and those patients can come in, get their eye exam, look at all those wonderful designer brands you have on the board, take a photograph of it, and leave and buy it somewhere else. Basically, your office, your optical department, is nothing more than the showroom for the patients who want to buy those designer frames somewhere else. So with private label, it cannot be shopped online. That’s probably the second biggest deal, that it’s exclusively yours. They can search all they want to find it online for a cheaper price, but they can’t, and you need to tell that as part of the story.

LeFevre: I’ll be the first one to say it’s really, really difficult to stock your entire dispensary with your own brand. There are always going to be people looking for whatever name brand it may be, whether it’s something like a Ray-Ban or Prada or Gucci. You’re always going to have those patients who want those things. But the conversations I have most often are, look at how much time most people are spending on social media…. When you’re able to offer your own collection, it can only be found where you want it to be. It really gives you the opportunity to tell a story, relate it back to your office and the amazing care that you’re already giving, and give this full circle spot where they’re now wearing your frames for the next year or 2. They are going to fall in love with them and keep coming back and wanting your brand rather than somebody else’s.

Gries: There are lots of benefits.… I think one of the things that did come out of [the COVID-19 pandemic] for our industry is that we’ve obviously gotten associated now with doing a lot of our work online, and the only thing that we get to see of a person is their face. So it doesn’t much matter now what shoes I’m wearing, if I’m even wearing shoes, because you don’t get to see them. So what’s become more and more important is seeing your face; you’ve got beautiful lipstick on, [so] that jumps out at me as I’m talking to you. How we are presenting ourselves is now really from the shoulders up. So eyewear has become a very important expression of ourselves. As a result of that, there has been a switch we’ve seen from people not wanting mainstream eyewear but wanting something that’s more of an expression of themselves, that’s colorful, that’s got unique shapes. People are now more interested in having multiple pairs of eyewear…. So the industry has changed, and this has given us many more opportunities. [Patients] want choice. They don’t want to look like everybody else. [By] creating your own collection, you are putting that together with your patient in mind.

Choy: The biggest thing is exclusivity, so you have a brand that is yours, and you can really market that. I think a lot of offices or practices forget about the most important brand, which is their shop. [The name of your frame collection] doesn’t have to be your name or your shop, but it has to be something that really complements who you are as an optometrist or as an optician or optical shop that really emphasizes the services you provide, because that’s so undervalued. The services that you provide, you just can’t get that from going online or going to certain big box stores, and the services you provide really are what we are here to support. That’s why we focus on quality, on making it very easy for you to have your own brand, because we know how difficult it is, because we’ve had our own brands in the past.

Canto-Sims: Can you share a success story from a practice that launched its own line with you?

LeFevre: One of my favorites that probably relates more to [Optometry Times] would be the office Look New Canaan. Dr [Jennifer] Stewart has done an amazing job with this cold start, and she was one of our earliest adopters. She really believed in what we were doing and has been…one of our loudest supporters. She tells so many people how beneficial it is to offer your own collection, and she has doubled down on that. Her branding revolves around her collection. She carries many other great independent options, but she and her team really dive into the ability to customize, especially engravings, for their patients, to make them their glasses. So when we do one-offs, we’ll customize those engravings to whatever their patients may want, whether it’s their name or a favorite quote. But I can’t say enough good things. They have done an amazing job taking what we’ve dreamed up and rolling with it and making their own monster. It’s a really incredible thing they’re doing out there.

Gries: Customers write to us regularly, just saying, “We just got a new delivery. We’re loving the frames. Our patients have loved it.” They reorder regularly, so I think that speaks for itself, too…. That’s the kind of feedback that I get that’s motivating for me. It’s always such a pleasure to get to the stage where the excitement is showing the specifications to a customer, where they can actually see their brand on the model of a frame, and it comes to life. And then in a couple of weeks, their delivery arrives, and they can feel and touch their frames, and they see their name on it. It’s very satisfying, from our perspective, to make those deliveries.

Canto-Sims: What advice would you give a practice owner who is hesitant to start?

Graham: Get your team involved in the very beginning, from picking the styles, from trying them on and seeing the quality of it, so they buy in on that…. It starts with the doctor getting the entire team involved. And that means right up to the front desk, get everybody involved in it. Put it on your website, put it on your social media, put it on your Facebook and Instagram. Put it everywhere you can, because if you forget about it, nobody’s going to buy.

Choy: I definitely advise not to do it as a novelty because usually that doesn’t really get you very far. I would advise you to consider, what are you using for your core product? I really encourage, especially with everything online now, [staying] away from the low-quality stuff, because it’s going to come back broken, or you’re going to have to deal with an unsatisfied patient, or bad reviews…. I would consider what you don’t need, if you have too many lines. But I see the successful accounts using our private label, the ones that really make it a core part [of their optical selection].

Gries: Given the changing times and the consumer spending, purchase [and] spending habits have changed in the last years. I think [practice owners] need to be confident. This is an opportunity to diversify and to have their own collection with the styles that they love, if they get behind it, if they have the energy, if they put the effort behind social media, if they do a few [livestreams]. It’s a great opportunity for social media to have product, to be able to do reels and [livestreams]…. It’s a small spend for the opportunity to try to build your own brand and to be unique. It will set you apart from what other people are doing, because nobody will have that brand on their frames.

Additional tips from LTD Eyewear

To effectively promote your line, consider investing in well-designed brochures, point-of-sale displays, and posters that convey your brand’s message. Educating your staff to introduce and upsell your line confidently is also essential. Additionally, encouraging satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on Google and Facebook can enhance your online presence.