Though not the fastest growing category, eyewear accessories if stocked smartly could mean a healthy addition to your revenue
As an optician who is always on the lookout for growth opportunities, the eyewear accessories category is one that you shouldn’t ignore. In spite of its small size, this category’s effectiveness goes a long way in improving your sales numbers, and businesses worldwide are stocking these to cut through their competition.
Why plunge into eyewear accessories?
From increasing the user experience to raising your own standards, the benefits of introducing eyewear accessories
to your collection are varied and not just limited to adding to the display of your store. The importance of selling accessories like eyewear holders, eyewear cases, non-prescription sunglasses, cleaning solutions, repair kits, etc. cannot be underestimated owing to their capability to give your optical business revenue that extra push it needs.
Here are the benefits of introducing this category into your practice, that are likely to convince you in taking a positive step forward
Customer experience
The reason why supermarkets have thrived so much is that customers prefer buying everything at one place. And the same is true when it comes to their eyecare shopping. So in order to provide the best shopping experience to your customers, you should focus on stocking every product that they are looking for. You wouldn’t want your regular eyewear customers to go shop for their eyewear accessories from another optician.
The next time, your customers might not hesitate to choose that other shop over yours.
This could potentially hamper your eyewear sales in the future. It will always be in the best interest of your business to meet all your customer needs. And just like eyewear, customers view eyewear accessories also as a service that the optician should be providing. So consider selling eyewear accessories to elevate your customer experience which in turn can boost your eyewear sales.
Add to your bottom-line
While lenses and frames may be your primary revenue stream, selling eyewear accessories can help. Accessories like eyewear holders, non-prescription sunglasses, etc. could be healthy additions to your store and have the potential to meet those additional end-of-the-year profit points.
Small sales are easy sales
Eyewear accessories wouldn’t cost your customers a fortune and hence, there is an enhanced possibility of impulse buying. If they like an accessory, there is a higher probability that they might add it to their basket which is not exactly the case when it comes to products like prescription glasses.
After-sale earnings
After-sale earnings are important as they do not take much of your time and help you add to your profits without diminishing your professionalism.
Accessories like cleaning solutions, cleaning cloth, repair kits, etc. are good options to encourage your customers to buy from you even after the main sale.
Enhance the display of your store
The display of your store defines the way in which customers see you as a brand. If they feel good about your store, the chances of them returning are high. And eyewear accessories go a long way in adding to your store’s display while giving it a smart and complete look.
Selling successfully
If your eyewear accessories don’t move very well, you might be wondering that you have stocked a category that buyers are not interested in. Fortunately, that is not the truth. Selling is an art and you might just be missing on a few best practices that you need to employ while selling eyewear accessories.
Here are a few tips to help you out:
Educate your team
Your team members need to know and understand the accessories that you have on offer before they can pitch them to the customers. It is also important that you educate your team around your vision to sell eyewear accessories and what it means to the business, more importantly, to the customer experience. Simply understanding the fact that selling accessories is a way to enrich your service, will help your team to do a better job.
Urge your team to practice using accessories like eyewear holders and chains so that they can demonstrate their utility to the customers in a useful yet appealing manner. Another important aspect for this category to work in your favour would be to proactively ask your customers if they would like to buy a particular accessory. The chances of an additional sale would increase drastically if your team inculcates the habit of being proactive while selling accessories.
Display strategically
When it comes to selling eyewear accessories, impulse buys cannot be overlooked. Hence, placing the accessories where they are most visible to your customers could increase their sales drastically. And for maximum visibility, you can choose to display
your accessories near check-in and check-out counters.
Another best practice to follow would be integrating the accessories into your eyewear display. For example, you can use some frames to display accessories while some frames could be neatly packed into fancy boxes. You can even place cleaning solutions and cleaning cloth next to the eyewear products. You will have to remember that novelty sells; the chances of making a sale increase tremendously when you make the product look appealing and useful.
Bundle them into packages
Bundling is a good strategy to increase sales, especially of eyewear accessories. It can lure the not-so-interested customers into trying out the accessories which they wouldn’t have tried otherwise. To achieve this you can bundle accessories like chains and boxes along with eyewear and other primary products.
In the beginning, this might be a difficult task but as time progresses your team will get better at it and would even be able to discuss packages with clients based on their sales. It would also be a good idea to come up with predefined packages and also to educate your clients about them at every given opportunity.
Stock high-end accessories
High-end accessories can boost your bottom line sales more effectively than the low-end ones. Low priced items might be able to attract buyers quickly but it is the ones with high price points that can increase your profits rapidly. Everyone wants to feel sophisticated and stylish; the same is the case when it comes to eyewear. Gone are the days when simple eyewear chains were in fashion.
Today, some accessories like eyewear holders are so classy that they can be sold all by themselves even if your customer does not purchase the eyewear from you. And as eyewear accessories is a growing category, there is an ever increasing opportunity to stock and sell high-end products. Finally, you can make every category that you sell a successful one, provided you have the right tactics and strategies in place. Always focus on the basics like customer service first and then build on top of them, you will surely see positive changes in your numbers.
