Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], February 23: Last few years have witnessed the advent of too many online eyewear retail brands. Taking them head-on is Ahmedabad’s leading boutique eyewear store – Sheth Opticals. In business for the last 4+ decades with more than 1 lakh repeat customer base, they have been at the forefront of this industry in the last 45 years. Eyewear retailing may seem like struggling from the constantly mushrooming online eyewear retail brands, but the fact is otherwise.
While most online eyewear retail brands may have been hammering about the lucrative discount offers, the reality is that their GMV stays limited to only certain segments amongst the entire gamut of products. The reasons are many: An offline eyewear store experience lets the buyer try &Buy, thereby helping the customer make a more precise choice compared to making a random choice. Second is the Touch & Feel related to the product-finish, besides the joy of receiving a faster delivery compared to online. And lastly, since all the reputed offline eyewear stores do ensure the presence of an Optometrist, the chances of receiving a wrong-numbered glass get eliminated.
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Besides the online segment, there is another set of partial challenges, too, as few offline-only eyewear retailers do believe in having too many showrooms. Now, this brings along another set of issues, of which the prominent one is of diluted brand experience for the customers as this is one such industry where the consumer expects a highly personalized and warm approach.
As per Mr Jishnu Sheth, the co-owner of Sheth Opticals – Ahmedabad: “The stellar brand built by my father, Shri Ashwinbhai Sheth, is something that’s very close to our heart. Franchising could have been an easy option for us in all this while leveraging our 4 decade-old brand legacy, but we have decided to limit ourselves to 2 stores only, namely at Navrangpura & Prahladnagar in Ahmedabad. The reason is clearly we do not intend to compromise on delivering the brand experience that has been built over the last 45 years, firstly by my father and now jointly along. It gives us immense pleasure that today we are recognized amongst the top choices of every Amdavadi professional and young style influencer. With us, all fancy eyewear lovers can find more than 45000+ sunglasses, spectacles or lenses from all global premium eyewear brands. In fact, we have also seen a steady rise of NRIs preferring us for their eyewear needs as there’s a significant difference in costs compared to overseas.”
