We Are Opening New Stores Every Month: Gurpreet Singh Bhatia
We Are Opening New Stores Every Month: Gurpreet Singh Bhatia

How do you see the eyewear market growing in India? What is your assessment of the market considering next five years?

 Optical Retail in India has been a stagnant industry in the past. However, in the recent years, there has not only been an influx of investments but the industry has witnessed an increased number of players, better technology, and products. The prescription eyewear market is witnessing an approximate growth of 15% CAGR. These are exciting times to be a part of optical retail, being a part of Grand Vision & Reliance retail; we are able to deliver immense value to the end user.

Kindly shed light on your current distribution in the online and offline channel? Going forward, what would the strategy scale-up the distribution?

Vision Express India is currently present in 30 cities with 158 physical outlets. We are exploring the best omnichannel strategy to deliver an integrated experience for our customers.

According to you, what are the major challenges as far as eyewear retailing is concerned?

India as a market has been waking up to the necessities of protective eyewear, regular eye checkups and perception of sunglasses like prescription sunglasses, as a need-based product only very recently. I feel this makes retailers with expertise like us responsible for educating the people and helping them choose the best eye care.

The Indian eyewear market is constantly forayed with premium international brands. Do you see them as your competition?

 Vision Express in India currently houses private labels designed in Europe which goes by the brand names of Miki Ninn, In Style, Sensaya, Julius etc. These are ranges that appeal to all ages and psychographics. I personally feel they are at least at par, if not better than some international brands in the market.

Kindly shed light on your current categories along with the average bill size? Going forward what are the plans as far as category expansion is concerned?

We are currently offering eyeglass frames, an innovative range of lenses, contact lenses, and sunglasses. We plan to expand our frame category with increasing our designer range to all price points, thus offering increased depth and variety to customers.

Going forward, what kind of cities and regions the brand will be looking to focus? Also, the mall vs high street where would be the focus?

Being global eye care experts, we want to be present wherever the customers need is there for our services. We will increase our footprints to make our world-class products and services more accessible to the customers. We are not distinguishing between malls vs high street locations.

At last, kindly highlight your growth plans?

We are opening new stores every month the latest being in Delhi and Hyderabad. There are more planned. We plan to grow deeper into the market and make Vision Express available to all those in need of eye care.

 

 

 

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