Doug Barnes
DALLAS—Responding to global trends such as convenience and personalization, Eyemart Express, located here, is in the midst of updating its operating model with an eye on addressing shifting consumer and technology trends, according to chief executive officer Doug Barnes Jr.

One of the objectives is to “tease out what a person would see value in,” Barnes said during a presentation at VM LIVE in Las Vegas. Barnes discussed Eyemart Express’ recent moves and its adoption of technology throughout its operations at VM’s “Minding the Store” live event, held as Vision Expo West opened earlier this month.

As part of its new strategies, which have been under development for 2 and a half years, Eyemart Express also recently launched an exclusive online shopping experience for existing customers with a valid prescription, as VMail reported.

“We’re in an experience-driven economy today,” Barnes said. Behind its moves, Eyemart Express also is putting more emphasis on analyzing customer data as a way of being able to deliver an Amazon-like “we recommend” experience to its patient base, he said.

“We’ve brought on very talented people as we’ve really grown the company,” Barnes said, noting that a new store design brings in more color and emphasizes customer experience. “We want to make sure that all of the product selection or anything a customer could want is under one roof.”

As it brought these new ideas together, Eyemart Express saw an opportunity to do a better job coupling its longtime focus on price with the “Express” name so that it could better deliver on the promise of a quick turnaround times for glasses. “We were so focused on price, which is what brought us to the party and was our calling card,” he said, noting that the “express” idea was being somewhat overlooked.

However, by aligning new hardware and software technology with certain incentives for in-store employees, Eyemart Express has now dramatically shortened delivery times for glasses. In the past, about 17 percent of eyeglasses were produced in under one hour. With its updates, Eyemart Express is now delivering eyeglasses in under one hour to 65 percent of its customers, and 40 percent of orders are fulfilled in under 30 minutes, Barnes said during his VM LIVE presentation.

“How we capitalize on that and really lean into that brand element is that we are texting people…the second their glasses are done,” he said.

As a followup to this communication, Eyemart Express also set up a feedback loop to communicate with customers and request reviews of the service they received using a star system much like Uber, Barnes said. “We’re really big on reputation management with our customer feedback loop,” he said.

Tying together the new ideas is a marketing campaign that tries to create more distinction for the company and which includes a cheetah as a main element. The cheetah is intended to represent that Eyemart Express “makes glasses crazy fast, cheetah fast,” Barnes explained. “It’s eye-catching and it’s different. We have a lot of creative things that we are doing that are different, but this is one that I thought was really eye-catching… and leans into the speed element.”