Modern Optical Retailing Strategies: Anti-Reflective and Mirror Lenses INTRODUCTION Success in today’s highly competitive eyewear retailing market requires new tools and strategies. This paper presents one such opportunity that up until recently has been unavailable to in-store retail labs and small-to-midsize optical labs — the ability to produce quality anti-reflective (AR) lenses and mirrored sun lenses in-house.And by doing so, significantly increase profitability and customer satisfaction. This ability has been made possible by the introduction of smaller, in-house AR Coating Systems geared to the throughput, space and budget requirements of the in-office lab. These new compact systems are designed to deliver big performance in a small footprint and offer a simplified approach to providing anti-reflective and mirror coatings. The right coating system enables eyewear retailers and small optical labs to offer anti-reflective and mirror coatings like those produced by “big box” coating companies, at a fraction of the cost and time required for traditional coatings. OPPORTUNITY #1 - ANTI-REFLECTIVE LENSES It’s well known that the U.S. eyewear market lags far behind those of other developed countries in the percentage of eyeglasses sold with anti-reflective lenses. Finding out how selling more anti-reflective lenses improves the profitability of your How far? According to a report published by The Vision Council in March business is a pretty simple (and eye-opening) 2016, only 30.1% of eyeglass lenses sold in the U.S. include anti-reflective exercise: coating, compared with 64.4% in Canada. In Europe, AR lenses account for more than 64% of eyeglass lenses sold in Germany, 61.2% sold in Italy, 59.6% 1. How many eyeglasses did you sell in France, and 57.9% in Spain, according to 2015 data from The Vision Council. during the year that did NOT include Japan is a world leader in the use of anti-reflective eyeglass lenses, with some AR lenses? sources saying more than 90% of eyewear sold in Japan include AR lenses. 2. Multiply that number by $75 to $100 But some U.S. eyewear retailers have embraced the value of anti-reflective (the average retail price for AR lenses and have effectively communicated the benefits of AR to their coating in the U.S., according to data customers. In fact, many of the most successful retailers in the U.S. have AR from The Vision Council). lens sales percentages that rival those in Europe and Asia. That’s the potential you could be And these high volume AR lens sales — both in international markets and among adding to your bottom line this year — select U.S. eyewear retailers — have grown or remained steady for many years. without needing to sell even one This wouldn’t be possible if consumers weren’t happy with their AR lenses. additional pair of glasses! If you’re not recommending AR lenses to your customers these days because of lingering fears of durability issues, customer complaints, or that people won’t appreciate the value of anti-reflective lenses, you’re simply denying yourself a huge opportunity — and denying your customers the vision, comfort and enhanced appearance they desire and deserve. And more people are becoming aware of the visual benefits that AR lenses provide. In a recent VisionWatch survey of more than 100,000 American adults commissioned by The Vision Council, the percentage of consumers who purchased AR lenses and said they were willing to pay extra for the lenses because of the vision benefits of the lenses was nearly three times higher than the percentage of buyers who purchased AR lenses for cosmetic benefits. Improvement in vision was an especially important factor in the purchasing decision among males and eyeglass wearers age 45 and older. Failing to embrace and enthusiastically recommend anti-reflective lenses today is a recipe for disaster. Eventually, your customers will look for premium eyewear elsewhere. 1 100% 90% 80% 70% While the U.S. lags behind in the percentage of AR lenses sold, many 60% successful U.S. retailers have AR sales 50% percentages that rival those in 40% Europe and Asia. 30% 20% 29.2% 50% 63% 99% 10% U.S. European Canada Japan Countries PERCENTAGE OF EYEGLASSES SOLD WITH AR OPPORTUNITY #2 - MIRROR LENSES Residing on the opposite end of the light management spectrum from anti-reflective lenses are mirrored sunglass lenses. Whereas AR lenses reduce reflections and thereby allow more light to pass through the lens (for better night vision, for example), mirror sunglass lenses are designed to increase the amount of light reflecting from the front surface of the lens, thereby increasing the effectiveness of sunglasses to limit how much light enters the eye in bright outdoor conditions. Educating your customers about the benefits of mirrored sunglasses can be a huge profit builder, because so few people fully understand the benefits of mirror lenses. For example, when added to standard polarized lenses, mirror treatments are a great solution for winter, such as snowboarding and snow skiing. Like polarized lenses, mirror lenses are excellent at reducing glare from the high amount of solar UV and visible light reflecting from snow. Mirrored sunglasses are excellent at blocking glare in bright light conditions, while also making it easy to see potentially dangerous icy patches — whether on a snowy mountainside or your own driveway or sidewalk. Another advantage of mirrored sunglasses is that they don’t cause optical interference with absorptive filters used in some automobile glass, which can cause the windows to have an annoying visible pattern. And sunglasses with mirrored lenses have a distinctive appearance no other sunglasses provide — which is why they are always in style. The profit potential from mirror sun lenses is huge, given that so few consumers are aware of the special benefits of these lenses. Quality mirrored sunglasses commonly sell for $150 to $200 or more, based on a recent online search of models by Ray-Ban and Maui Jim. HOW MUCH MORE REVENUE WOULD YOUR RETAIL OPTICAL STORE GENERATE IF YOU SOLD MORE SUNGLASSES — AND SPECIFICALLY, MORE SUNGLASSES OR POLARIZED SUNGLASSES WITH MIRROR LENSES? To find out, determine how many of your customers who wear contact lenses also purchased plano sunglasses from you last year. (If you’re like most optical retailers, that number is way too low.) Start discussing the advantages of mirrored sun lenses with all your customers and recommend these lenses enthusiastically to drive more plano sunglasses sales — and prescription sunglass sales, too! What if you double the number of sunglasses you sell in the year ahead — how much additional revenue would that create? Keep in mind that mirror sunglasses are premium products that should be positioned at or above the price of polarized sunglasses. Suddenly, that dream vacation (or paying for your second child’s college education) is starting to seem a little more reasonable, isn’t it? 2 COATING TECHNOLOGIES FOR AR AND MIRROR LENSES Basically, there are four types of technology available to create high quality AR and mirror coatings: 1. Vacuum Evaporation Coating – Within a high vacuum chamber, an electron beam is focused onto optically clear materials, such as silicon, zirconium and titanium oxides. These materials evaporate and then adhere to the surface of lenses suspended on racks within the coating chamber. The coating process requires lenses to be meticulously cleaned using a multi-step process that includes ultrasonic cleaning machines and heat drying to remove any moisture from the lenses. Also, the coating chambers are large, expensive and complex. The entire lens preparation and coating process generally takes at least four hours. 2. Vacuum Sputter Coating – This also is a vacuum coating process, but sputter coating does not require the same high vacuum conditions required for conventional evaporative vacuum coating. Vacuum sputter coating also can be applied with much smaller coating chambers and requires less ancillary equipment and operator skills compared with vacuum evaporation coating. Also the air-lock loading system of vacuum sputter coating machines significantly reduces the length of time lenses must remain in the coating chamber — from about one hour to only 15 minutes. Vacuum sputter coating is a proven thin film coating technology that produces a very high quality broadband anti- reflective coatings (comparable to or better than those produced by vacuum evaporation coating), with a significantly lower capital cost and installation cost, and much smaller facility footprint. Because of these features and advantages over vacuum evaporation coating, vacuum sputter coating is particularly suited for use in smaller optical labs and in-store retail labs who wish to provide their customers high quality AR and mirror lenses with a faster delivery time. 3. Nanoparticle Coating – This is a relatively new coating process in which nanoparticles in a solvent are applied to surfaces using a dip or spin process, followed by curing of the coating with heat or UV radiation. A high quality broadband AR coating requires multiple layers, however, so it is uncertain how well a nanoparticle coating process would work for applying such coatings. Nanoparticle coating is still in development and is not currently used in the optical industry. 4. Sol-Gel Coating (spin) – The sol-gel process is a method for producing solid materials from small molecules. It can be used for the fabrication of metal oxides, especially the oxides of silicon and titanium that are used for broadband AR coatings. The process involves conversion of monomers into a colloidal solution (sol) that acts as the precursor for an integrated network (or gel) that is applied to a surface and then cured with heat. Like nanoparticle coating, sol-gel coating is a relatively recent development and is not yet being used for creating AR and mirror lenses.