VANCOUVER, British Columbia— Coastal Contacts Inc. (TSX: COA) (Stockholm: COA) maintains it has achieved “a new service record” for the online shipment of prescription eyeglasses. According to the company, Coastal reduced the average time between the order being placed by the customer to the time of shipment to 0.7 days. “We believe that making and shipping prescription eyeglasses in less than one day is a standard that defines the category and places Coastal in a unique position,” said Roger Hardy, Coastal’s founder and CEO.

“Coastal’s in-house eyeglass manufacturing facility operates 24/7. Competitors in our space typically use third party or offshore manufacturing facilities which make it impossible for them to achieve this type of service commitment.” Coastal operates its own optical lab, in which it invested $8.8 million (see Online Eyeglass Sales Drive Coastal’s Q4 and FY 2011 Revenues). “By shipping eyeglasses in less than a day we experienced a significant drop in status calls to our Customer Care Center,” added Steve Bochen, COO.

Coastal also reports that its North America hub shipped 83,066 prescription eyeglasses during the month of January 2012, compared with 38,207 eyeglasses during the same period in 2011, an increase of 117 percent. Founded in 2000, the company services customers in more than 150 countries through its family of websites, including Coastal.com, ClearlyContacts.ca, Lensway.com, Lensway.co.uk, Lensway.se, ClearlyContacts.com.au, ClearlyContacts.co.nz, Contactsan.com, and Coastallens.com. With every pair of qualifying frames purchased, Coastal donates a pair to someone in need through its Change the View Project (see CoastalContacts.com Launches Change the View Project).