I have found that pricing optical goods is one of the more difficult decisions to make when managing a dispensary. A dispensary must be competitive in the retail market and it also must be a place where your patients WANT to purchase eyewear. There is a general consensus among patients that dispensaries associated with the doctor’s office are MORE EXPENSIVE. This is extremely frustrating as many eye doctors work very hard to market their dispensary and sometimes it feels like an up hill battle. At the end of the day, our optometry office sends a survey email to all patients that were seen for a full exam. There is a section of the survey where patients note why they did not purchase their eyewear from us. To my dismay, we continually get graded as our “perceived cost” is high. This is an area that we continually work on. The average markups are detailed in this blog post. I am hopeful that this is helpful for you.
*table is from MBA statistics 2011
