NEW YORK--Luxury is an imprecise formula that mixes one part exclusivity, one part quality and one part price to communicate to today’s consumers.

 
 
To gain insights into how eyecare professionals define today’s luxury market, Jobson Optical Research surveyed more than 200 of them and asked them to estimate how they view the category, and their varying definitions underscored the dramatic differences that prove, in many cases, ‘luxury’ is ‘relative.’ For example, some ECPs define as ‘luxury’ only those frames that are priced higher than $200 at retail, some 26.3 percent. While for the majority of others, the start point for a luxury retail priced frame starts at $300--more than 56 percent of those surveyed used that as their definition of the start of ‘luxury.’

Approximately 17 percent said they felt true luxury applied as an adjective to those frames that retail for $500 or higher.

Also, when asked to describe which one factor describes ‘luxury’ eyewear to them, “high priced” was selected by 20.8 percent of respondents while exclusivity was given the highest priority by 37.7 percent and high quality was the definition used by 41.5 percent of the respondents.

How ECPs answered those two questions drove the rest of their perceptions and reality in the luxury eyewear arena, since those orientations affect everything in the dispensary’s environment, from the mix of price points to the number of brands they feature.

A number of questions in the Luxury Eyewear Study, which surveyed everything from the proportion of premium lens and sunwear sales per location to the number of brands and units offered in the respondents’ stores, varied slightly depending on how they answered these “definition” questions, which offer different opportunities for driving growth and decisionmaking.

For example, those people who define luxury in terms of higher-priced frames, on average, those retailing at $300 or $500 or more, tend to carry fewer brands in their overall mix as do those who define luxury in terms of exclusivity. The lesson for ECPs is to take a clear look at their mix and their customer base to determine if true ‘luxury’ positioning--to be accompanied by all that that means--is the best or most productive option for their store or dispensary.
--Marge Axelrad