Monthly fees range from $19 to $29.
Eyewear start-up Ditto, which raised $5 million in financing last year with the introduction of “virtual try-on” technology that uses a webcam or phone camera to create a 3D model of a prospective purchaser’s face, is now introducing a marketing innovation as well. For a monthly fee of $19 for sunglasses and $29 for prescription glasses, Endless Eyewear customers get a rotating choice from among 50 brands. “If they don’t like the pair or get tired of it, they can swap them out for anytime you want, with free shipping and returns,” says the website TechCrunch, which quotes Ditto head Kate Doerksen on the origin of the idea. In talking with customers, she says, “One storyline I heard over and over was what we started to call the ‘one and done’ dilemma, meaning people could only afford one pair even though they wanted multiple styles. We knew if we could solve this … dilemma, we’d make a lot of our customers happy, and we had a hunch that it would be attractive to a much larger audience.”
Read more and see images at Tech Crunch