I was recently at a museum. I admired a curator’s glasses and told her that they were cool. She proudly told me that she had just gotten them in the mail the day before and that they had cost only $4.95. It made me wonder: Don’t people appreciate quality products and valuable commodities? Or maybe what they value is getting something that they think is valuable at a price that seems fantastic.

While I am talking about prices related to eye care, let me go on. What if people view commodities as all being the same? What is better about the soft contact lenses in your office compared to the ones at a big box store? What is better about the products that I sell as a contact lens practitioner verses the ones that are sold through online chains? I would argue that these products are all the same.

How We’re Different

Do you know what is different about a contact lens practice and a big box retailer or online seller? It is the practitioners’ services and ability to fit contact lenses. Patients may go to an online retailer or a big box store to fill their prescription, but they chose you for the service. Patients can’t get that service from them, and your patients trust you because they find value in that business. Considering this, perhaps we should charge more for our services and less for the products.

Hear Me Out

Let’s run through some numbers for 100 contact lens patients. Let’s assume that 50% of your patients buy their lenses from you, and 50% buy them elsewhere. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that your current profit from a year’s supply of lenses is around $100/patient. So in this example, you make $100 from 50 patients for a total of $5,000.

Now let’s run an exercise in which you raise your contact lens fitting fees by $50 per fitting. Let’s assume that you lose 25% of your contact lens fittings as a result. In this example, the 75 fittings at $50 more per fitting totals $3,750. Additionally, you lower the cost of your contact lenses by $50 for the annual supply. As a result, 75% of your patients purchase lenses from you. In this example, 75% of 75 fittings is 56 patients, ordering lenses at $50 profit for the annual supply for a total of $2,800. This yields your practice just over $6,500 in profit ($3,750 from fitting costs and $2,800 from the sale of lenses) from the increase in fitting costs and the decrease in lens prices. This amounts to more than a 20% increase in revenue.

Let’s consider a few highlights. This model assumes that 25% of your patients are unwilling to pay a higher fitting fee and that increasing the fee will compel them to leave your office. It also assumes that 75% of your patients will buy an annual supply of lenses. Taking into account the patients who may only buy a partial supply of lenses, this still puts you ahead because of your increased fitting costs.

There are several advantages to this raise/lower approach. The patients who stick with you are doing so because they appreciate the services that you provide to them. In addition, your lower product prices give them an incredible incentive to buy from you.

Make the Move

How much longer are practitioners going to complain about online retailers and big box stores? Stop complaining and try a new approach to solve these problems. CLS