Selling online what people would never buy online

Shopping skeptics said people would never buy certain things —shoes, diamond rings, cars — online because they needed to see the products in person. They were wrong. E-commerce companies have found success in all of those fields.

But some purchases still happen mostly offline, including one of the most personal: prescription eyeglasses.

Warby Parker, a New York start-up, thinks it can persuade people to shop online for glasses, with a combination of fashion, low prices, technology and old-fashioned customer service. It seems to be working.

“We’re asking consumers to change the way they buy eyeglasses, so we want to de-risk it as much as possible,” said David Gilboa, who founded Warby Parker with three friends from business school, Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt and Jeffrey Raider.

The company designs its own glasses, which largely stick to a stylish chunky look, and generally sell them for $95, including prescription lenses made of polycarbonate plastic. By contrast, designer prescription glasses typically cost several hundred dollars. The company keeps prices low by ordering from manufacturers and selling directly to consumers, avoiding expenses like brand licensing fees and retail markups along the way. It does not offer bifocals, and it charges extra for thinner lenses for strong prescriptions...Warby Parker orders the acetate for the frames directly from a supplier in Italy and has them made in the same Chinese factories the big companies use. The lenses are inserted in New York.

The Web site uses facial recognition technology so shoppers can upload a photo of themselves and try on virtual glasses. For those who are still doubtful, the company will mail five loaner frames. All glasses are returnable, and Warby Parker rents space in a few stores in big cities where people can try on glasses before ordering online.

“It’s very much a new model,” said John Gerzema, president of Brand Asset Consulting, who studies shopping trends. Most e-commerce sites try to steer customers toward a purchase, while Warby Parker encourages people to mull it over, he said.

“You may lose a few sales, but what’s interesting is they’re betting that the margin is in the relationship long-term,” as well as in fewer dissatisfied customers and returns, Mr. Gerzema said.

Warby Parker customers enter their prescription information on the site, including the distance between their pupils, which is not usually on prescriptions but which opticians can easily measure. Some states also require customers to send the company a copy of the prescription.

The founders recently hired an eyeglass designer, but they designed the first collection, using ideas from magazines, vintage stores and their grandparents’ homes. They sell a monocle — “the perfect accessory for budding robber barons, post-colonial tyrants and super villains,” the site says — based on one owned by Mr. Hunt’s grandfather.

Other young e-commerce start-ups are taking a similar approach. Bonobos, for instance, a New York business that sells men’s pants, encourages customers to order pairs in different sizes and return those that do not fit, with free shipping both ways.

via the NY Times