What drew our attention and what kept us busy in 2011? Today and the next days at Vision-Today we look back at this year. The economical circumstances didn’t get better, consumer trust reached a low and the expectations are far from optimistic. How did the optical industry and the Dutch opticians deal with these circumstances and who were the winners and the losers? Let’s start with some winners: Ed Kriek opened a new store at Nieuw-Vennep, Mestrini did the same at Maastricht and Saton at Oegstgeest, just to mention a few. Groenhof renewed and extended at Amstelveen, Boddeüs did the same at Franeker and the Muynck at Goes. Hofstede at The Hague won the prestigious international Euroshop Retail Design Award for the outstanding interior design of its new store and Greving & Greving became one of the rare Dutch purveyor’s of the crown. Eyelove went bankrupt but its eyewear corners at the DA drugstores are still open. More than enough entrepeneurs in the country we would say and this list is certainly not complete. In addition many new plans for next year so we think we may say the branch is alive and kicking. Less good news for marketing group Oogmerk which will stop its activities by the end of this year. Optitrade expects to fill the gap with its “Collective of Independent Opticians” and announced a merger with “hear” specialists HINK. Safilo appointed Dutchman Robert Polet as its new CEO, fired all of its middle management in the Netherlands just before Christmas and still has problems to translate its great portfolio of brands in a healthy growth and net profit. This Autumn the company announced the future loss of its license agreement with Giorgio Armani worth about 200 million euro sales. Positive news was the acquisition of Polaroid and the new Céline license. Essilor strengthened its market position with the acquisition of several companies throughout the globe but the last one was certainly the most remarkable (to be continued).
