Competition in the Vancouver eyewear sector is heating up as several new companies enter the Vancouver market even as the global eyewear sector undergoes dramatic consolidation.
The Ollie Quinn brand has expanded to five Metro Vancouver stores since March while Bailey Nelson has confirmed its first two store openings this summer and Warby Parker is said to be scouting locations.
All this is happening as French lens manufacturing giant Essilor and Italian spectacles behemoth Luxottica finalize a megamerger that the two companies announced in January and Essilor shareholders approved May 11.
Executives say the $68.7 billion transaction will yield greater operating efficiencies and result in a company with 140,000 employees, thousands of retail locations under brands such as Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision and LensCrafters and sales in roughly 150 countries.
Branches of what in future will be known as EssilorLuxottica are already operating in Vancouver because Essilor is the parent of Vancouver-based Clearly, which has two stores in the city even though the lion’s share of its sales come from online orders.
Clearly has no new bricks-and-mortar stores planned for the region, but it has been making its offerings more competitive. On March 1, it launched free same-day shipping for online shoppers who live in either Vancouver or Burnaby.
“Since the launch, we’ve seen weekly growth in the number of customers who are choosing this service,” Clearly’s chief business officer, Keith Baker, told Business in Vancouver on May 8.
Newcomers to the Vancouver market are relatively unfazed by the sector’s consolidation.
“When large companies with substantial control of an industry get together, it is often the consumers that suffer,” said Michael Andersen, Ollie Quinn’s CEO for North America.
“We don’t see this affecting Ollie Quinn’s position in the market, and, most importantly, we don’t see it affecting our customers,” Andersen said. “We believe there is a large and very engaged audience who value independent, community-driven businesses.”
Andersen operated three eyewear stores in Metro Vancouver under a partnership with Bailey Nelson until March. He then rebranded the stores as Ollie Quinn, and the company opened a fourth store on Main Street. It then opened a fifth Ollie Quinn on West 4th Avenue on May 2.
The company’s basic framed glasses are all the same price: $145, including tax. Prescription sunglasses and frames with progressive lenses are $245, including tax.
“We’re aggressively egalitarian,” said Andersen, who lives in Vancouver and subcontracts the manufacturing of lenses to a Burnaby company.
With Ollie Quinn’s Bailey Nelson partnership now dissolved, Australia-based Bailey Nelson plans to open its own corporate stores in Vancouver.
Its managing director for North America, Bree Stanlake, told BIV that her company will open a store on Robson Street in late May or June and another in Gastown at the end of June or in early July.
Warby Parker opened its first two Canadian stores in Toronto last year.
“It would be a no-brainer that Warby Parker would at least consider opening a store in Vancouver,” said Craig Patterson, a retail analyst and owner of Retail Insider Media.
“I’d be surprised if there weren’t already negotiations underway for at least one Vancouver store. My guess, given where Warby Parker has opened stores in Canada as well as internationally, is that we’ll see Warby Parker open either in Gastown or on Robson Street.”
Patterson called the brand “trendy” and verging on “hipster” credibility.
“It’s innovative, has brand awareness and is at a value price point,” he said. “There’s also BonLook out of Montreal, which is value-priced and hip. They plan to open in Vancouver.” •
