You buy a pair of glasses and they give a pair away!
Most people don’t know that an Italian company by the name of Luxottica Group S.p.A. owns over 80% of the world’s eyeglasses and sunglasses market. Luxottica owns all of the major luxury brands like Ray-Ban, Ralph Lauren, Channel, Prada, Oakley, and retail chains like Pearl Vision, Lenscrafters, Sunglass Hut, and many more brands and retail chains. It’s hard to compete with a company that owns everything from your $1 Dollar Tree sunglass rack glasses to your $383,609 Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses.
Companies like Luxottica own traditional channels that are related to eyeglasses and sunglasses. This is where Warby Parker comes into the industry by disrupting the eyeglasses and sunglasses market with nontraditional methods.
How did Warby Parker succeed against a market full of Luxottica brands?
Warby Parker started with the idea of going direct from production to consumer to sacrifice price for the quality. But keeping their glasses at low cost online where people could not feel the quality was an issue. So they took to social media and gained social proof through review promotions, an online learning community, and their program that allowed patrons to order five pairs of glasses and pick the one they liked the most and send the rest back free of charge. This new way of doing business redefined the buyer’s process.
We all go to the internet for reviews of products and services before we buy them, Warby Parker found an effective solution to that issue. The promoted that people share their experience with Warby Parker glasses through social media, creating an unofficial brand ambassador community. Therefore, when people look up a product or the Warby parker brand, they will see non-brand pages posting honest reviews and showing off their Warby Parker glasses.
Why didn’t Warby Parker leverage traditional methods like other brands?
In the traditional environment, Warby Parker would have needed to get their brand recognized through the styling of their frames and the social impact of them giving a free pair away every time someone purchases a pair of their glasses. However, they would have been needed to seem genuine due to the television commercial market being seen as a scripted medium. Also, with traditional mediums, most times, you cannot track the progress of the campaign, they get overlooked often, and typically reach to broad of an audience.
Is Warby Parker eyewear is just as good as my name brand glasses?
Warby Parker makes the process easy and stress-free by eliminating all risk. By allowing users to pick five pairs of glasses and keeping one as their final decision removes all traditional fears and risks. We all love to try on the glasses to see how they feel, if they look good with our facial structure, if they have all the features we like in glasses, and lastly, if they are big, small, or just right.
Why should I support Warby Parker instead of other brands?
Since Warby Parker is vertically integrated, they control their production cost as well as profit margins. This is how they can afford to donate free pairs of glasses every time someone buys a pair. This not only boosts the company’s social impact, but it makes consumers feel good about their purchase. Each pair of eyeglasses that Warby Parker gives away comes with a story to be told. Those stories are the foundation of the brand, starting with the owner who lost his glasses and went a year struggling to see because he could not afford a new pair for eyeglasses during college.
Overall, Warby Parker innovated a space where there was little to no wiggle room for new businesses in the eyeglass market. They devised a risk-free buyer’s program and leveraged social media for the growth of the company. They have done something that no other eyewear provider has done for its customers and also tied in a giving aspect to add to their social impact. In a time where brick and mortar businesses are in jeopardy, Warby Parker had it’s online eCommerce system mastered.
