INVISION ASKED THE more than 270 eyecare business owners and managers who responded to our 2020 Big Survey to name the sub-$100 purchase that paid off the biggest for them at work over the past year. The answers, from rooftop picnic furniture to comfy shoes, were a fun reminder of ECPs’ resourcefulness and plain old common sense in a year of craziness and financial uncertainty. Here are a collection of our favorites.
Question: Tell us about something you bought for less than $100 in the last year that had a significant impact on your business or your day-to-day work life?
- A washable uniform; it’s like wearing pajamas to work. Very comfortable and safer than street clothes during the pandemic.
- Whiteboards. Love me the ability for some accessible and visible checklists.
- We bought a portable picnic table to use on our roof when we need to get out of the office for a break and don’t want to sit in our cars. It’s been fantastic!
- Blue blocker demonstrator
- Those cushy mats that you stand on while doing lab work. Huge help for my knees and feet!
- Scrubs…. My dry cleaning bill is gone!
- Supplies from Amazon to make face shields in the office during the pandemic.
- RightInbox – $10/month app that I use along with Gmail. Allows me to schedule outgoing emails a few days, weeks, months in advance.
- Scarves of every color to hold near their face so that patients can try on frames to see what they look like when wearing other colors.
- Essential oil diffusers
- A $50 UV sanitizer for frames.
- UVC cabinet. Saves so much time cleaning frames, etc.
- The Bionic Thumb; such a great tool to have on hand (no pun intended!)
- The ring doorbell in our optical near the expensive frames.
- A great pair of shoes!
The 2020 INVISION Big Survey was taken by more than 270 North American eyecare business owners or managers. Look out for the November-December edition of INVISION or visit www.invisionmag.com/the-big-survey-2020 to read the full results, and even more on how ECPs fared during a weird, weird year.
