Vision Expo East 2024: The latest in frames purchasing trends with Alysse Henkel

Over the past week, new information on consumer trends for purchasing lenses, frames, and other corrective eyewear has been reported by The Vision Council. Alysse Henkel, MA, vice president of research and inSights at The Vision Council, broke down some of those key findings during an Optometry Times exclusive intervew at Vision Expo East.

Video transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Alysse Henkel, MA:

I'm Alysse Henkel, I'm the Vice President of research and inSights at The Vision Council and I'm here the show because The Vision Council is a coowner of Vision Expo. We're also here to share about some of the research that we're doing for our members. So a couple of the very recent reports that we've worked on include frames trends. We asked consumers in the US about what kind of preferences they have around buying frames and one of the highlights from that is that we're seeing that the classics are classics for a reason. Folks right now are trending towards square and rectangular-shaped frames, as well as neutral and black colors. One of the interesting things that we've seen at the generation level that the younger folks are much more interested in black frames than folks older, so the Gen Z and millennials are more interested in black color friends than Gen X or boomers.

The other report that we've released recently is a really comprehensive report about comparing online eyewear shoppers versus in-person eyewear shoppers. So some interesting things that we've seen there are that overall, even though there's a lot of buzz around online shopping for eyewear, still 5 out of every 6 glasses that are purchased, are purchased in-person. So there's still a lot of business happening in-person for eye care practices and optical retailers. And what we're also seeing is people shift from online to in-person and back. So we also have a section in the report that sort of highlights like how those switchers, as we call them, like how their behavior changes, and we see some satisfaction changes related to shopping online versus in-person. So for contact lenses, where we have a higher proportion of folks shopping online, somewhere around 38%, compared to 15% for frames, that people who buy in-person actually show a little bit higher satisfaction with the retailer than those who buy online.
Interestingly, however, and a little bit surprising, is that we find for the in-person glasses purchases, people are a little bit more likely to recommend their retailer when they buy online than when they buy in-person. So that we're still trying to sort of delve into the "why" of that a little bit, but it is an interesting sort of trend that we're following and trying to understand about like, what is different about the online and the in-person shopping experience for glasses that is somehow, you know, making it a little bit more satisfactory for those who are shopping online.

So I think overall, hopefully optometrists, you know, feel a little bit a sense of comfort or relief around the high proportion, the 84% or so, that have those transactions for glasses that are still happening in-person. That's still a really important role that they play, and I think also just turning around and sort of focusing on what the customer wants and needs. It could be that maybe people could be a little bit turned off by some high-pressure sales tactics and that's why they feel a little bit more comfortable going online. So just making sure that you're meeting the patient or consumer where they are, and making a good shopping experience for them for their frames.

So we released a report in December of last year where we did surveys, both with parents of children with myopia and then parents of children of a similar age who didn't have myopia to sort of understand what they know about the childhood myopia epidemic. And then, especially for parents who had a child with a diagnosis, wondering about how they got their information and how well informed they were. So not surprisingly, we found that parents across the board got most of their information about childhood myopia from their eye care provider. So they're still a really important source of information for parents to learn about the potential to prevent that condition, but also to treat it and to manage it once your child does become myopic.

One of the things that stood out was that maybe some of the education that eye care providers are doing for parents of children with a diagnosis, is not quite sinking in in the way that we would expect. So in a couple of ways, there was some surprising data. For instance, that we know that parents who don't have a child with a diagnosis really didn't understand how to prevent it. So in particular, there's a lot of good research to show that spending time outdoors is a great way to help children prevent or delay that kind of diagnosis, but most parents didn't know that. I think it was only 13% of parents knew that, whereas most thought that genetics or screentime were some of the biggest factors in preventing myopia. We also saw that making sure that parents understood the ramifications of childhood myopia, so even those with a diagnosis, with a child with a diagnosis, that they weren't fully aware of the seriousness of the condition or the potential for it to be serious; like, could potentially down the line relate in vision loss, most parents didn't know that. They just thought there was more need for eyewear or corrective vision, and didn't really understand some of the ramifications around potential vision loss down the line.

At The Vision Council, our phrase for the year is around, "Be part of the vision." So I would invite optometrists to be part of the vision, The Vision Council, and because I represent sort of the data nerds of The Vision Council on the research side of things, I would just say, to try to engage with us. We have a ton of information that we can share that can help people sort of better understand who's walking into their practice, better understand what the market looks like for exams, for frames, for lenses, all that sort of thing. So I just say, to get as engaged as possible and join us and be part of the vision.

I think, overall, that probably people don't understand how much information and research is available out there. So that would just sort of be my little bit of PSA from the research and data side of things. If you have a question about what's happening in the market or what are the trends happening for consumers related to frames, lenses, what have you, sunglasses, that there's lots of good information available that they can access.