|
Sitting at a poker table, money is exchanging hands; laughter and conversation make it hard to hear. It’s Saturday night and you are among friends so when you head home with nothing more than lint in your pockets its fine because you are not leaving an economic exchange, you do this every Saturday night. The relationships are built on something completely different. This is significant to note because it demonstrates exactly what you don’t want to do in your optical business, to simply take part in an economic exchange.
The independent optical shop competes best when they
compete where they have the advantage. Because their business relationships are personal, local, and interdependent, quality is often considered the way to gauge success as it is more directly responsible for sustainability and growth than is price. There is no multi-million dollar advertising budget to fall back on, no team of public relations people to spin your failures, you sink or swim by what you produce with none of the insulation that seemingly endless supplies of money can buy.
That said it is understandable that the internet is filled with the voices of consumers who have learned that quality has many definitions and they have concluded for themselves that getting what they pay for in today’s market means they may need
to reconsider their personal definition of value. These are the realities created by distance and limited personal investment in a process whose very nature, start-to-finish, is based on a
personal relationship.
If we consider that the base economy is human interaction and acknowledge that everything else is just a means to facilitate it, a blinding truth presents itself: our success is in the relationship. The relationship is essential - the economic exchange is just a vehicle. The initial meeting between the eye care provider and the consumer is consummated with the transaction, but from that moment forward the “chance” meeting of proximities has an entirely new dynamic because it has become a relationship.
It is not uncommon to come across people who are unhappy with a transaction not because they did not get what they
paid for but because they got precisely what they paid for. For example, a customer enters a large retail optical and asks for a pair of nose pads for their glasses. They are then directed to a display where they are confronted by the prospect of having to pay for what they expected to be free. They must confront the reality that there was no relationship – just an economic exchange. They leave with their feelings hurt and are not likely to return. This is where another advantage of the independent optical shop is seen as the single common thread that cannot
be duplicated by the large retailer. It is the one constant in the middle of every exchange with the lab, frame vendor, staff, and the consumer: the relationship.
The local and regional lab owners that I know have a large piece of themselves personally invested in everything that comes out of their lab. It is after all a reflection of who they are, personally. The labs that I used were based on relationships forged in trust and mutual support. I gladly paid a premium for their consistent quality. Almost every conversation I had with a lab owner or representative was punctuated with repeated queries soliciting feedback on the quality of the work they were supplying. Contrast this with the volume/margin focused attention of the big retailer where the proactive solicitation of feedback on lab quality issues seems almost taboo and as welcome as the refund caused by the quality issue. This is a critical difference.
We can agree that quality is necessarily more costly to produce when compared to the mass produced approach of “simple-with-the-fewest-possible-variations” but the relationship has a higher level of commitment than an economic exchange. This directs us to several other advantages the independent has over the large retailer and further demonstrates that the options made available with an increase in cost represent a tremendous gain in value. With flexibility to offer significantly more
products and services and service what they sell to a much greater extent than the large retailer, the independent optical shop has the ability to charge accordingly.
The independent can service products better and with far greater efficiency than the large retailer for a number of reasons largely insurmountable to the large retailer. Things as simple as an original temple cover, a right or left temple or a frame front can all be causes for remaking the entire job at a large retailer.
However, this is usually not the case at an independent optical where there is flexibility to order a frame specifying any or all of the many available variations whether it is one of several colors or sizes, different temple lengths or bridge sizes. The buyer at the large retailer has limited the choices for the consumer before a host of important considerations could even be assessed. The home office decision was likely based on what price and terms for the “unit” could be secured – not on whether it was a good choice to address the highly specialized needs of that trusting smile sitting just across from you.
Price and service are at the same time mutually exclusive and intimately related. You cannot offer both the lowest price and the highest quality; it is simply not possible. Where you position yourself on this quality continuum lays the groundwork for your success when you mate it with an overall vision for where in the continuum you want to reside. If the product is presented as a commodity we should not be surprised when it is treated like one. The market has clearly demonstrated that there is a place at the table for a range of philosophies on quality and value. What I suggest is equally clear is that a successful occupation of the lower end of this continuum already exists and is firmly and for all intents and purposes immovably in place.
The strategy of the mass merchandising retailer of competing on price instead of quality, once understood, announces to all of us its innate weakness. For too many years we have folded to their bluff. We sit unsure next to the dealer while across the table, distracted by the pile of chips at stake, we forget about the ace in our sleeve.
Email any comments to: editor@ECPmag.com |
