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Eye Love Subscriptions

Dollar Shave Club busted onto the scene in 2012, offering a monthly subscription service that made men’s daily function easier—and cheaper—by delivering razors and blades right to their doorsteps.

Fast-forward four years, and the company was purchased by Unilever for $1 billion. Like Birchbox, the subscription service for beauty and grooming products that came before it, Dollar Shave Club hit a nerve in consumerism.

These successful disruptors have since spawned today’s “subscription economy”—and a huge wave of similar services in a variety of product sectors that ring in $5 billion annually.

Ipsy (makeup). Graze (healthy snacks). Tea Sparrow (tea). Bark Box (dog treats). Club W (wine). And, now LensFerry S.

CL SUBSCRIPTIONS, TOO? Launched by CooperVision earlier this year as an add-on to its LensFerry ordering process, LensFerry S enables practices to offer patients subscription-based ordering of their 1-day contact lenses.

The service divides the annual cost of 1-day lenses into automatic monthly payments and quarterly lens deliveries. LensFerry S includes contact lenses from all manufacturers at ECPs’ specified prices, and the prescribing practice receives the sales revenue as if the lenses had been paid for in-office. (There is a small membership fee for participating ECPs.)

KEEPING SALES IN-HOUSE. “Approximately $440 million in annual contact lens sales leave practices every year,” explains Shaun Schooley, vice president of global marketing technology at CooperVision. “Utilizing a service like LensFerry S can help stem practitioners’ losses by offering patients a simple, hassle-free, affordable subscription service from their doctor.”

Practitioners also benefit from the predictable, recurring revenue streams a subscription offers—plus garnering sales that may have gone to online discount sellers.

THE BOTTOM LINE. The service allows patients to easily upgrade to the newest technology, keeps patients compliant with their contact lens wear, and can boost revenue.

In fact, Kurt Steele, O.D., of Drs. Foster, Steele, and Stone, of Newport, TN, reported contact lens supply sales increases of 20% after he started using the LensFerry S subscription service. Those are sales that might have otherwise gone to online discounters.

“As technology advances, it’s critical that eyecare practitioners offer services that align with consumer needs to prevent leakage to online competitors,” says Schooley.

Info: lensferry.com.

—Susan Tarrant