With the rise of online retailers, it’s getting harder to make a profit from optical dispensaries. It may seem impossible to convince a patient to purchase frames from your practice with online retailers competing for the same business. But sometimes, it’s not the online retailer’s fault.

Common challenges could be affecting your optometric practice's ability to communicate the value of your frames, impacting your profits. Below are 5 reasons why your practice is struggling to grow your optical dispensing sales.

Challenges Impacting Your Optical Dispensing Profits

You Don’t Know Your Buyers

In your optometric practice, you have a lot of time to get to know your patients. From the questionnaires that the patients fill out before the appointment, to the small talk in the exam lane, you can learn a lot about your patients from the information gathered through these resources. However, small talk doesn’t always reveal their buying strategy. 

Knowing your patient’s buying strategy will help you understand why some patients buy from your practice and why others purchase from online retailers. One way to get a better understanding of your patient’s buying strategy is to create a buyer persona based on your patient demographics. Identifying what makes a patient come to your practice, why they purchase frames from your practice, and why they object will help you and your staff to better prepare your sales messaging.

Wrong Inventory

Your practice’s frame board can make you a lot of money if you have the right inventory displayed on it. While your frame board should match your patient demographics’ wants and needs, you also have to determine if a specific frame will sell enough for you to make a profit.

Take a look at your inventory and match what you have to what is selling. If there’s a frame that hasn’t sold in recently, or only caters to one patient, it’s time to pull it from your frame board to make room for a style with a larger appeal.

Another strategy you can use is to reduce your frame options. One article notes that offering fewer selections in retail may increase sales.

Outrageous Pricing

Maybe you understand your buyers, and your inventory is just right. But, your frames still aren’t flying off the shelf, why?

The answer could be because your pricing is not aligned with what the buyers are willing to pay.

I get it, you want to make a profit, but if you price your patients out of a particular frame, then you’re not going to sell it at all. Find a pricing strategy that works best for your patients and your practice profits.

Poor Sales Tactics

Having a sales strategy in place creates a predictable pattern for your staff to comply with. A successful sales strategy begins the moment your patient walks into your optometric practice, extends into the exam lane, and is heightened in the optical dispensary when the patient is looking at your frames. Using tips for handling the sales strategy in each area of your optometric practice will help increase optometric frame sales. Here are some resources to help you sell throughout your practice:

• How To Instantly Improve Your Optical Dispensing Sales
• Successful Strategies To Boost Optical Dispensing Sales In The Exam Lane
• 5 Articles That will Help Opticians Close More Frame Sales
• Objection Handling Strategies To Boost Sales

Unfavorable Customer Service

When a patient enters your practice, they expect to have their needs cared for and to be treated with respect. However, if your staff seems distracted or doesn’t seem to be listening to the patient’s wants and needs then you may lose more than a customer, you may also receive negative reviews which could further damage your reputation. By banning bad customer service habits from your optometric practice, you can increase patient satisfaction, which will increase your referrals and may lead to more optical dispensing sales.

Read more tips on growing your optical dispensary profits in the ebook, "4 Weeks to Bigger Profits in Your Optical Dispensary."