I remember going to the opticians when I was a kid and wearing a freaky contraption on my head to get my eyes tested. You didn’t have to work hard at looking like a nerd, any pair of plastic glasses will do that for you. Opticians often kept limited stock to attract the masses so you will be lucky to find something you can agree with in style. That bit hasn’t changed much, so I realised having grown up. The high street opticians are no different, they are still keeping less variety in styles, designs and brands because one they don’t have shelf space and second they want to promote only a limited number of brands.
Rise Of The Online Opticians
Who would have thought that the ecommerce revolution will bring about a paradigm shift in the way people selected and bought glasses online from an optician website!! yes online. If certain companies especially the optical giants of the high street had any reservations, they were thrown out of the window by the need for survival created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The repeated lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 made it very clear to the high street opticians that if they have to survive, they will need to have an online presence. This need for survival has broken the old habits of the retailers and consumers alike.
The consumers not being able to go out of their homes took to the internet to find online opticians who could make their glasses. The high street opticians had one more trick up their sleeve, which is to not reveal the pupillary distance (PD) to the patient. Without the PD the glasses cannot be made accurately to the prescription. However, technology has allowed us to create ecommerce solutions and apps for opticians which take the picture of the consumer taken by the webcam and use facial recognition API to workout the distance between the two pupils. How cool is that! The online market for prescription glasses has gone up and customers are finding it more comfortable to buy online.
We have had the opportunity to work with some amazing optical companies and as a result we have gained a weath of knowledge and insights into the working of the optical sector. Our passion to innovate, challenge ourselves and create ecommerce websites has led us to deliver a number of projects for online opticians such as Framesfoundry.
Technology For Opticians
Ecommerce Platforms
We have had the opportunity to deliver opticians website solutions on both Magento and Shopify ecommerce platforms. They are both excellent platforms and have something to offer to the right company. Where Shopify has the ease of use, a user friendly mobile app, a plug and play type feel which most users will find easy to navigate around and find their way, Magento has the multistore functionality and open source licensing which means you could really extend the core functionality and deliver highly personalised customer experience which is what is required by the online opticians.