(Westport, CT / August 27, 2021) — When it comes to optical buying choices, Eyeglasses.com Founder/CEO Mark S. Agnew says that customers are embracing online technology over brick & mortar stores, but overall sales still pale to 2019 pre-pandemic numbers.
“We have heard from customers that the experience of visiting eye doctors in the past year has deteriorated, and exam rooms are now more crowded and less personal,” he says. “Many optical stores closed, and the ones that remained suffered. Eyewear is a postponable purchase; consumers who used to get annual eye exams simply skipped it.”
While economic shutdowns, layoffs and fluctuating employment options have transformed consumer buying habits over the past year and a half, Agnew notes that consumer behavior was strong through this year’s first fiscal quarter and second-quarter earnings showed growth over 2020. “Sales were flat compared to 2019, and it remains to be seen if back-to-school will be robust or not, compared to 2020.”
Agnew adds that thanks to the pandemic, however, the majority preference for online shopping is here to stay. “We have a massive eyewear selection compared to optical stores and doctors’ offices, it is obviously easier to shop from the comfort of your home and we offer specialty conveniences such as our Replacement Lenses service.
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“If your lenses become scratched, simply mail it to us and receive the same high-quality lenses made in the same US lab that an eye doctor would use. And, unlike most other online optical stores, we do not sell low quality, cheap lenses made in overseas production facilities. We deliver only the very best to our customers – all the time, every time.”
Find your best look at www.Eyeglasses.com.
ABOUT EYEGLASSES.COM:
Mark S. Agnew is the CEO and founder of Eyeglasses.com, a leader in the online consumer eyewear business. Since 1999, Agnew pioneered online retailing by being the first eyewear company with a virtual try-on application, earning two patents which were later sold to Luxottica Corporation.
Agnew has long been a consumer advocate, leaving a successful Wall Street career to develop Eyeglasses.com, which sells high-quality eyewear to customers for half of the price normally charged by optical stores. As an expert in the eyewear industry, he is the author of the Eyeglasses Buying Guide: How to Pay Less and Get More, which offers advice and information to all eyeglass consumers, offline and online.
Founded on the principal of helping others, Eyeglasses.com has continued to evolve its charity program and in 2019 launched PiWear to literally make blind people see again. For every pair of PiWear sold, Eyeglasses.com funds a cataract surgery in India. This effort has earned Agnew wide-ranging media coverage in the press.
Prior to founding Eyeglasses.com, Agnew was Director of Fixed Income Research and Vice President at Lehman Brothers, and before that as Managing Director at Bear Stearns. Agnew started his Wall Street career at Drexel Burnham Lambert, but denies all responsibility for the demise of those three companies. Institutional Investor Magazine recognized Agnew as a top analyst for his investment research, which numbered in the thousands of pages during his ten years on Wall Street.
Agnew earned his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BA in Art History from Vassar College. He is an active Rotarian, was a board member of the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce and is active in local charities.
