Eyewear and eyecare are expensive. Frames alone can range from $2,000 to as much as $10,000 depending on the brand and style.
However, one optical company is offering free frames for life and free replacements accessories when needed, including cases, cloths, nose pads and screws. In addition, free repairs are offered when possible.
This is in keeping with the mission of Ultimate Eyewear Ltd to play its part in creating much needed employment and boosting T&T’s challenged economy.
Opened in April this year, the company is co-owned by Tryon Indalsingh and Sunil Dodoll, both BSc holders and highly skilled professionals in the field of optometry. The Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain, location is the flagship store, a branch recently opened at High Street, San Fernando, and another is soon to be established in Princes Town.
Ultimate Eyewear Ltd is the first to introduce a membership programme, covering all aspects of eyecare and eyewear.
Indalsingh explained: “We wanted to create an ultimate eyewear company hence the name. The company has agreed to issue a certain number of these exclusive memberships and treat these members so good that they never have the need or desire to seek eyecare with any other optical company, thus eliminating the competition.
“Our business model and structure allows for these benefits to be made possible to members. We simply want you to become our patients for life.”
Should spectacles be lost, stolen, or damaged beyond repair, even if it’s the patient’s fault, the company offers a no-questions-asked replacement, including frames and lenses, simply by paying a replacement fee equivalent to 15 per cent of the original purchase price once it’s within the two-year membership period.
Patients who want to change the colour or style of their frames after purchase just have to pay 15 per cent of the initial cost within the stipulated time-frame.
“All we ask of customers is their loyalty in returning to us every two years to purchase new spectacles. These memberships are a limited time offer based on a predetermined number of patients per branch the company desires. Once we have reached this limit we will close our doors to new members,” Indalsingh said.
No penalty will be incurred on customers who don’t want to renew.
The number of members Ultimate Eyewear Ltd is seeking is a company secret, Indalsingh said.
“Once we have the desired number of memberships per branch we will close off membership to the general public and serve only our members.
“Every two years, when someone is supposed to come back and renew their membership, should they not do so,this will open up space for new members,” explained Indalsingh, who describes himself as “a businessman at heart.”
Patients who sign up for membership cards will firstly be educated on the concept and will then have the option to book an eye exam costing $100. Frames are free from the very start. Lenses range in price from $1,000 to $2,500. A card will then be issued, guaranteeing free membership. Every two years the patient must return to purchase new glasses.
Indalsingh said the company is the result of ten years of planning, including extensive market research, with the aim of creating the ultimate and premier optical company.
“We have created a profit margin that we can live with. We also want to provide T&T with genuine and sustained benefits. In these uncertain economic times people want genuine savings and benefits while companies want to generate and retain their customer base.
“When we apply this logic to optics, given the desire to become the ultimate and be different and set ourselves apart from anyone else, our ultimate concept was created,” he explained
The company stocks a large variety of frames, offering some 90 brands, including premier names like Tiffany and Ray-Ban. There are 2,000 frames to choose from.
To remain competitive, the duo sources their frames from companies that only offer a vast assortment of brands rather than frames from individual brand entities. Large conglomerates also vet the quality of the frames to ensure highest possible standards. Indalsingh and Dodoll have formed strategic alliances with companies in the UK and US that facilitate their business concept.
“These alliances have allowed us to do a package like this with us being profitable and to create our patient database. To do so is to literally offer patients everything. To remain sustainable we also own our own lab with the very best that technology has to offer and therefore we are able to control the prices of lens..
“Because of our strategic alliance with many frame suppliers who are on board with our membership concept, we get frames at a price that nobody else gets them at,” Dodoll said.
He explained that their key to survival, among other factors, is having strong relations with foreign companies, primarily top management.
“We only deal with the CEOs of the companies, so they have a good understanding of our ideas because those are the decision makers. Fortunately, we have long-term relationships so we have leveraged on that. A lot of these companies are very open to putting us on an account receivable—staggering payments, structuring buying deals—and it has worked in our favour. We are not there to only buy when we have US dollars because when we don’t we lose out on the deal.
“Our business depends on a sustained flow of products. We are working with the economy and with suppliers as well,” he said.
Dodoll said, in many instances, relationship buying depends on finding that vital common ground between suppliers and business owners. In addition, people are taking better care of their eyes and seeking eye care from early.
“People are looking for something they can afford, something that is of high quality. They are not as naive as before.
“We have also invested in state-of-the-art machinery that can even detect eye diseases at very early stages,” Dodoll said.
Future plans include opening at least ten branches across the country over the next 12 to 18 months. The aim is to employ 12 people at each branch. All will be located in high traffic areas to ensure members literally are at their doorstep.
Ultimate Eyewear Ltd is also planning to bring out its own line of contacts and solutions exclusive to members, thus branding itself as the total eyecare solution.
