Last Saturday, the Dutch Financial Daily once again reserved a few pages to review the developments in the retailstores. What will be the future? The realilty is less buyers in the shopping streets, too many stores, heavy competition from online stores and more and more manufacturers who offer their products directly to the consumer whether online or in own stores. Even Procter & Gamble has its own webshops where you can buy shampoo, razor blades, diapers and cleaning products. We see many examples in the meantime in the optical industry as well forcing opticians to think about their future business. Still “shopping experience” is the magic word. Recently this resulted in an overload of technological gadgets in the stores which all failed to create any difference. Today retail experts agree that this kind of gadgets has proven to be useless. Shopping experience is certainly important but should be created with the products and services we offer. Much to win there in this industry. We have enough to tell but we fail to do it. The challenge is there. Opticians should embrace innovations as innovations will shape the future and drive this business in the years ahead.
