NEW YORK—It’s not a surprise that your optical shop is facing tough competition from online retailers. Online retailers often have large marketing campaigns and lower prices, which can make them hard to compete against. But, the expert knowledge and quality products in your eyecare practice should have what it takes to compete with online giants. So how do you relay that message to your patients and keep them shopping in your dispensary? Here are three tips for blowing out your online competitors:

Tip 1: Understand the Appeal of Online Retailers

Before you can do anything about your online competition, it is important to understand why your customers find them so appealing in the first place. In a recent study by Shopper Approved, they found out some of the key factors that are influencing consumers to make online purchases. The results included:

  • Larger Selection (25.4 percent)
  • Better Pricing (25 percent)
  • More Convenient (24.7 percent)
  • Time Savings (7.2 percent)
  • Easy Comparison Shopping (3.6 percent)
  • No Sales Tax (3.3 percent)

Based on this data it’s safe to believe that selection, price and convenience are the biggest factors pushing your patients to shop online. Larger selection and pricing are two things you can control when laying out your dispensary’s frame strategy.

Tip 2: Don’t Be Just a Showroom

It happens more often than not that patients in your dispensary take the time to browse and try on frames in your shop, and then go look online for a cheaper price. Here are a few strategies you can implement in your optical shop to help avoid becoming a showroom.

Don’t overprice your product—Online shopping makes it easy for your patients to look up a frame quickly and see what type of price they can get online. Being reasonable and competitive with your pricing strategy will make patients more comfortable with your prices. Build attractive frame displays—Think about the stores that are your favorite to shop in. What makes you like them so much? How can you apply their merchandising and display techniques to keep patients in your shop?

Provide high quality customer service—You should have the leading edge on customer service over online sites. Being able to interact with patients face to face should give you the upper hand in this category. So make sure your staff is trained, knowledgeable and friendly toward every patient.

Be social—Being active on social media is a great way to interact with patients when they aren’t in your office. It’s also a great way to run contests or offer promotions to keep them thinking about your product and enticing them to come back into your shop. Optimize your website—Another way to compete with your online competition is by being visible online. People are going to the web more and more to search for products and services, and more often than not, that search is done on a tablet or phone. Your practice website should be mobile friendly and search engine optimized.

Encourage buying local—The trend for “shopping local” is becoming more and more important to local consumers when they understand the benefits of putting money back into their local economy. Practice what you preach, and buy local yourself to support your community and they will more than likely return the favor.

Tip 3: How to Fight Back

One of the best things you can do to fight back against online retailers is to reiterate to your patients the value they receive by purchasing frames from your practice. Patient education is your biggest weapon. Explain how your expertise will provide the right measurements to make sure your frames and lenses are fit just for you. You and your team can also offer the best suggestions on products that will be best for each patient’s unique lifestyle.

These tips are just a sampling of Week Three in VisionWeb’s latest eBook, 4 Weeks to Bigger Profits in Your Optical Dispensary. Download your free copy of the full eBook today.