NEW YORK—The Optical Business Barometer (OBB), new from Jobson Optical Research, has been designed to gauge the optical business trends of eyecare professionals at independent optical locations and to provide independent optical retailers with a comparative “how’s business” benchmark throughout the year.


The OBB is a monthly survey of a representative sample of independent optical retailers (single locations and groups of no more than 3 locations). It is conducted online by Jobson Optical Research and is designed to measure attitudes toward the business climate of independent eyecare professionals. The OBB is based on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is “very negative”, 3 is “neutral” and 5 is “very positive”.



Based on results for April 2010, respondents’ feelings regarding their business stood at 3.6. The results are similar to the start of the year, when January’s results were also an assessment of 3.6, just slightly below those from March. February’s score was the lowest this year at 3.4.

Feelings regarding their outlook toward their own optical business for the future six months remained steady at 3.7 on the 1 to 5 scale.

Independents’ sentiments for the next 6 months, regarding the overall optical business throughout the U.S., also stayed the same at 3.5 compared to the previous OBB March report.

The findings of the OBB are comparable to those in the Consumer Confidence Index from the Conference Board (www.conference-board.org), where confidence in the economy dipped in February and raised to an Index of 52.3 in March to wind up above January’s results in April at 57.9.

Similarly, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB, www.nfib.com) Small Business Study also saw results drop in February and March, with March being the lowest in ratings and April being the highest this year at 90.6.

To see the latest OBB results from Jobson Research, go to www.VisionMonday.com.