By Marge Axelrad: Editorial Director

DALLAS—More than 500 eyecare practice online e-commerce “stores” have been built to date by MyOnlineOptical.com, the e-commerce initiative for independent eyecare professionals launched by Essilor just over six months ago.

The number of MyOnlineOptical online sites, most of which, as of today, are connected to practitioners’ own existing websites, already exceeds the company’s initial 2010 projections, according to execs. Of the online stores, which include those built for OD and MD practices as well as some for opticians, the vast majority are offering both eyeglasses and contact lenses for sale. The majority of sales—more than 80 percent at last estimate—have been in CLs and sunwear, although sales of prescription eyewear have been growing, too, with both single-vision and PALs, execs told VM. While they declined to provide specifics, they said that numbers are changing each month—overall, about 10 percent of the sites have seen “active ordering,” defined by MyOnlineOptical execs as processing more than one order per week.


“Our intent,” said John Walborn, who heads the MyOnlineOptical team, “has been to enable independent ECPs with the tools to extend their practice online and provide them the technical and supply chain tools for e-commerce solutions—and we’re very pleased with our results so far.

“We got input from nearly 5,000 independent ECPs and they told us, ‘We want the sites to be our own.’ They’ve spent years building up their name and reputation in the business. They also told us they wanted to be able to expand the number of products they offered online compared to what’s in their brick-and-mortar dispensary—and they wanted to be able to choose those products and determine the pricing.”





Dr. Lorie Lippiatt’s Salem Eyecare Center site’s “Virtual Eyewear TryOn” section then leads patients to the practice’s online eyewear store.
Added Matthieu Tagnon, director of internet marketing, Essilor of America, “Some are new practices, just out of school, others are more mature who’ve been operating for some time and are looking at ways to invigorate sales.”

Tagnon said if practices had CL ordering before, they can choose to add MyOnlineOptical for eyeglass purchases only. There is a setup fee for participating ECPs and there is a transaction-based percentage fee system for sales of products via the MyOnlineOptical program. For contact lenses, there is a flat transaction fee charge.

Since its launch, MyOnlineOptical has been conducting information webinars. Noted Tagnon, “We do not have a crystal ball, but we feel the Vision Council’s projections for the purchase of eyewear purchased online to double is on track, if not conservative. Just in the past year, there were 223 million keyword searches on Google for ‘eyeglasses’ and related terms between January and May this year, a 20 percent increase over the last five months of 2009. For sunglasses, there were even more.”

The product assortments and the pricing of products are determined by the ECPs who use the MyOnlineOptical system, Walborn and Tagnon emphasize. “This is an open business model system, and the ECP is responsible for marketing the e-commerce site.”

Walborn also stressed the lab network that supports the prescription eyewear ordered via MyOnlineOptical includes a range of some 20 labs, some of which are Essilor labs and some of which are not. He said the company would continue to evaluate the labs within the support network. The frames offered are from a range of eyewear companies who have elected to participate—but the choice of frame lines and price points are the ECPs’ –once an account is authenticated by the participating suppliers.

MyOnlineOptical.com uses the back-room, processing and technology solutions of FramesDirect, in which Essilor acquired majority control, last year.

Pierre Fay, president of Essilor global e-commerce, told VM “MyOnlineOptical is providing a strong marketing interface for the independent ECP to interact with their patients on an ongoing basis. This will have a huge impact on growing eyewear consumption.”

He noted, “We do leverage the technical and e-commerce infrastructure of FramesDirect.com and have applied this expertise—in product marketing, online customer service and email marketing—to MyOnlineOptical. But the goal is to help the doctor claim back some of the sales that might be lost to other direct e-operations. It’s a separate business and a tool for retaining patients, for building business—online and in the office or store—for the long-term.” nn

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