NO TWO independent optical shops are the same. While many of you live and die by the eye and nothing but the eye, some have interests far broader than just selling eyeglasses. Not to mention that businesses, by necessity, are becoming more inventive about how to get customers to come into their shops. A more immersive and expansive in-store experience via a hybrid retail model helps make visiting the store itself more important; while combining the sale of eyewear with other products can make for a very interesting business model. Following are three optical retail outfits putting their own stamp on hybrid selling and adapting it to suit their brand.
THE CURATORS
Atelier Mira | Brooklyn, NY
In a venue that feels as much like an art gallery as a retail space, Atelier Mira in Williamsburg, Brooklyn opened by Rama and Assia Valentin in March 2016, carries a curated selection of five luxury brands in addition to their independent eyewear offerings. According to general manager Erin Rae, the store carries three leather goods brands, a fragrance line, and a collectable home decor design brand. “We are primarily an optical shop, so the approximate ratio is 75 percent optical and 25 percent other goods,” says Rae. “Also, Rama and Assia’s dear friend Guillaume Paturel made a painting that hangs in the entrance of our space. It is for sale, so we always mention that his art work is for sale.” The products they carry are all thanks to personal connections to the manufacturers or designers, and craftsmen. “Rama and Assia have an affinity for objects with quality craftsmanship and originality that only few designs can qualify as. All the products we sell are things that they have discovered and fell in love with… limited in availability and honorable in quality. They have strong opinions about style and keen eyes for design like true tastemakers do, so these criteria extend to almost everything in the store,” adds Rae. It was a conscious decision to offer a broader range of products from day one. “Having something else to talk about with our customer in the one-on-one experience makes it a bit more lighthearted and varied… It lightens the mood and makes it a more personal relationship instead of us just trying to sell you something,” explains Rae.
Their concept is so strong, in fact, someone even wanted to buy it. “We had an entrepreneur come in from China who wanted to buy our concept and replicate it (he wanted to buy Assia as well!),” shares Rae. “He had just never seen anything like it before and wanted to replicate our story exactly in his department store in China.”
THE OG
selima optique bond 07 | New York,NY
Selima Salaun opened her first boutique on Wooster and Broome in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood in 1993 and Bond 07, her NoHo boutique, in 1998, making her a true OG of concept stores. Though all of her six stores sell non-optical products, it’s her Bond 07 store that takes it to the next level. Besides eyewear, at Bond 07 they sell vintage clothes, handbags, jewelry, scarves, accessories, and home goods from Hermes, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Chanel and other designers. According to Salaun, about 70 percent is eyewear and 30 percent is vintage clothes and accessories. “I have always been a passionate collector of vintage clothes, accessories and furniture,” says Salaun. “Most pieces we carry at Bond 07 are more or less a selection of items I find while traveling or browsing through vintage stores or fairs. Everyplace I go I try to find something new and if they do well we carry them over from season to season. We have jewelry staples customers can always count on us for.”
For Salaun the goal is to offer her customers an experience. “It’s exciting and different to not only find a great pair of glasses, but also an accessory or outfit, which goes well with your new pair of glasses. It can be a challenge to continuously change the product assortment and being able to surprise your clients with great new pieces.” But not every product has been a hit. “I have sold so many different categories in my stores including perfume, dishes, luxury olive oil and nail polish. One day, a lady drove me crazy asking for help choosing a color of nail polish. I swear I spent as much time selecting a color for her as choosing the perfect pair of glasses. I tried to convince her to buy a few but she refused. That day, I took all the nail polish out of the store and decided to never sell anything below $20 again.”
THE ONE STOP SHOP
spektkle | Matthews, NC
Vivencio Austero had a dream. Spektkle is the manifestation of that dream. “My dream has always been to provide the highest quality product, gently priced while supporting small independent frame designers,” says Austero. “Adding small independent labs … brings it all together; customized service, technology and uniqueness in eyewear.” The trick was finding the place to make that dream a reality; eight months ago he did. “I wanted to be different, so I was considering everything out of the norm,” he explains. “The idea of shared space popped up and seemed to fit; it was flexible, people were seeking out the shop, they are open to new ideas. It didn’t take us long to find GingyGems.” He shares a space inside a country marketplace and thrift store, which enables him to provide a friendly retail setting. “My business definitely benefits from the traffic GingyGems brings. Patti Cohen, the owner, will always let her customers know there is a new optical shop sharing space in her store. Likewise, I tell people I meet when I’m networking that I share space inside GingyGems.” Being located in a thrift store presents a very special challenge. “Since I am in a location where ‘everything’ is for sale, I get a lot of offers for some of my displays. Before I even opened, I had more than one offer for a beautiful oak cabinet I use as a desk. One of my funniest challenges is keeping my wife from pricing all my displays to stimulate cash flow.”