EXAMINING EQUIPMENT

Our exclusive Eyecare Business 2017 Equipment Focus Group Study intel reveals how ECPs are using—and planning for—their in-house labs

Eyecare Business July 1, 2017

Do you complete your eyewear in-house? Nearly half of your peers do.

In fact, a full 52% of eyecare professionals do some form of in-office lens finishing, according to the 2016 EB Market Trends Study.

That’s encouraging, for it indicates a desire to take control over a portion of the retail process that can increase customer service, keep revenue in-house, and combat competition—by providing fast turnaround and even crafting completely custom lenses with shapes, colors, and embellishments created just for their patients.

To learn more, we took the pulse of ECPs who are currently edging (or surfacing) their own lenses—or even thinking about doing so in the future. Get the insider results of our exclusive EB Equipment Focus Group Study here, and see how ECPs across the country are using their equipment and how it’s affecting their business.

39

AVERAGE NUMBER OF LENS JOBS DONE IN-HOUSE (PER WEEK)

RELUCTANCE + CHALLENGES, EXPLAINED

Lab Challenges

While revenue and customer service are positive results of having a lab, there can be some challenges as well. Here’s what respondents said are their key concerns:

Keeping breakage to a minimum

Finding and retaining qualified lab techs

Staff ability/training/time/having trained staff and keeping them busy

Finding the room

Managed care dictations

Making sure the work is high-quality

Limited lens blank options

Cost of equipment

$48,244 AVERAGE ANNUAL PROFIT GENERATING FROM IN-HOUSE EDGING

SURFACING, RANKED

Lens processing equipment—even surfacing equipment—is trending smaller and more user-friendly. This is causing more high-volume ECPs to consider bringing the whole process under their roof. Here’s what our Focus Group respondents had to say:

Most important features of surfacing equipment:

Ease of use
Digital/free-form capabilities
Compact size

Main reasons for not surfacing:

Not enough room
Not enough lens jobs
Too complicated
Not enough qualified staff

PURCHASING PLANS, OUTLINED

Whether it’s to upgrade existing equipment or to start up a lab from scratch, many of you have buying plans in the future:

Reasons for purchasing new equipment:

51% Replacement of like equipment

48% Efficiency cost savings

39% To obtain technology that keeps up with trends

10% Need higher capacity/output

“The advanced age of our equipment means it necessitates excessive R&R (downtime), unfortunately. However, the customerservice benefits of edging in-house more than offset this inconvenience.”

—SURVEY RESPONDENT

PentaVision

Eyecare Business