EDITOR'S LETTER
Competitive Strategies

Back to basics. That's the focus of this issue of EB. And, it's why we address a number of business builders—from managing markups and margins to growing the bottom line with single vision lenses, as well as the newly independent twenty-something consumer.

It's all about basic business building and competing for market share in terms of both patients and products. At the National Retail Federation conference this winter, a consultant told several of us in the press office that she had recently conducted a survey of business owners and found that regardless of the size of the operation, these executives saw similar customer care and competitive challenges.

That's why I found a roundtable at the NRF so interesting. In it, four small- to mid-sized chain executives discussed competing with the big boys. What surprised me was how much they sounded like owners of much smaller businesses in optical. Like most of you, their biggest challenge was communicating to and convincing consumers that their offerings and services were better than the competitions'.

Together, the participants came up with a list of strategies for competing. First, start by deciding exactly what you want to stand for in the eye of the

P.S. Don't miss this month's Seiko-sponsored CE for opticians, "Retina Forward Design: A Progressive Lens Technology."