Never mind just the DAY, July is a month to celebrate Independence!
In honor of the July 4th holidays, we want to celebrate Independence Day all month long with a shout out to independent-eye-care professionals across the nation that are the heart and soul of their communities and fan favorites of their local prescriptive-eyewear clientele.
In this day-and-age of box stores, and on-line retail experiences, being an independent in the eyewear industry or any industry for that matter is not always easy. Best practices, building healthy inventory, staying on top of fashion trends, educating others about overall eye health can be a full-time job for today’s ECP and all while you try to leverage, grow and retain your existing client/patient base.
True, there are several benefits to being an independent ECP. Flexibility, brand control, the ability to make your own decisions regarding the lines you carry, who you hire, and how you run your practice are just a few. In addition, being a “smaller” company allows you to move fast since not everything has to be done by committee or with the approval of the “board”.
At Väri, we celebrate many of these same things, but from a manufacturer’s perspective. Of course, owning our “brand identity” and what we stand for is important to us, but so is being able to provide service to our ECP’s more quickly and efficiently than they are probably used to getting from some of the bigger manufacturers. Indeed, we may not have the same advertising budget of these industry giants, but dollars to donuts if you have a question, a challenge or an idea you want to discuss, you’ll be able to get the Väri president on the line to hear you out.
And we certainly LOVE hearing from our ECP’s! Sometimes we get the best ideas and feedback from the very people that love selling our line! Like our unstoppable clipables….they were already a smash hit with many of our retailers as a go-to fun in the sun and plano option when we got the suggestion that we might add an additional stabilizer to the clip. We thought this was brilliant and it provided a fail-safe so that the clips never “pop” off the frame when the frame is “flexed”. So, we added it to our next mold, updated the style and we offered it in our new clipables the VC3 and VC4. Product line change…yep, just like that. Being small enough to move on a dime can be a really good thing.
Being David and facing Goliath can be daunting as a manufacturer, but we know that we have a lot of fans on the professional side of the business and with the patients that walk into your stores! We know that as the industry continues to change, independent retailers will still appreciate the responsiveness and the extra-mile that independent manufacturers like Väri provide. After all, our success depends upon YOUR success and we’ll do everything in our power to help you SHINE! Whether it is a service issue, or you need a replacement part to a frame because a customer’s dog chewed off a temple, we are here to make YOU look like the HERO you are!
So, this month, let’s give a cheer to all the independent spirits out there – on both sides of the channel! Wishing you a great summer!