The success rate of opening traditional eyewear retail stores is getting lower and lower. "Opening stores in high-traffic areas doesn't increase customer numbers." "Participating in online group buying for online traffic generation only earns 2 yuan per pair of glasses." Recently, many regional eyewear retailers complained about the current state of the industry at an ophthalmic optics forum, which also reflects the common pain points faced by many offline eyewear stores during their transformation period.

In response, Fu Tao, director of the national customer success center of Mingyue Lens, told Jiemian News that the market structure of eyewear stores has undergone tremendous changes. In the past, consumers saw more eyewear stores on the street, but now many ophthalmology clinics have gradually appeared. In the past, opticians were called optometrists, but now they are more often called optometrists, or in the future, the concept of "optometric doctors" may emerge in the industry.

With the increasing number of ophthalmology specialized hospitals and clinics in China, the survival space of eyewear stores is gradually being squeezed. Professional medical ophthalmic service institutions have sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain. In addition to conducting professional medical eye health screenings and treatments, they have also seized another huge segment of the market—optometry and dispensing.

The fundamental reason is that various lens sales and dispensing services are one of the important sources of income for ophthalmology hospitals and clinics. Eye care giants such as Aier Eye Hospital, He Shi Eye Hospital, and Huaxia Eye Hospital are rapidly promoting their optometry businesses. In particular, there is now a small refractive clinic model on the market, and eye care giants are also using this model to exchange volume for low prices to seize market share during periods of weak consumption.

In addition, unlike other industries that can easily transition online, dispensing requires obtaining consumers' optometry prescriptions and has a strong dependence on professional offline services. This is the core reason why eyewear products are difficult to achieve large-scale online sales. This is also why the market competition between traditional eyewear retailers and ophthalmology specialized hospitals and clinics in optometry and dispensing is unavoidable.

According to Zhiyan Consulting, in 2021, the number of ophthalmology hospitals in China reached 1203, a year-on-year increase of 13.4%, and it is expected that the number of ophthalmology hospitals in China will further increase to 1219 in 2022. According to the data from Zhensuojie, a primary medical industry service platform, since the full implementation of the clinic registration system, the number of newly registered clinics has surged in the first half of the year. Among them, in the first half of 2023, there were more than 300 ophthalmology clinics.

Therefore, traditional eyewear retail enterprises have to seek transformation and upgrading. "Optometry centers are the choice for the professional transformation of traditional eyewear stores." This is the common understanding reached by eyewear retailers in the industry.

From a deeper perspective, the transformation of eyewear stores into optometry centers is actually a cross-border upgrade from commercial behavior to medical behavior.

The traditional business of eyewear stores is to provide optometry services and sell eyewear products, while the business of ophthalmology hospitals or clinics, in addition to providing more professional optometry services and selling eyewear, also provides professional eye care services such as amblyopia training, products to slow the progression of myopia, prescribing medicines, and ophthalmic surgery.

"Eyewear is a product that is half medical and half commercial. In the future, the industry should focus more on the whole life cycle of eye health management. In addition to dispensing glasses, consumers who come to the store may also experience symptoms such as myopia, presbyopia, and dry eyes, which requires the service provider to provide more professional services. These are things that traditional retail eyewear stores cannot provide." Fu Tao said.

The target of eyewear stores' transformation—optometry centers—is the middle ground between ophthalmology hospitals and clinics, and it is also a choice for eyewear stores to achieve phased upgrades. The emergence of optometry centers provides more eye health services. According to iResearch Consulting, based on the threshold of eyewear stores, the core of optometry centers is that only three types of medical device licenses (sales of corneal shaping lenses, atropine, etc.) are required to be obtained.

Fu Tao said that in the past, the entire industry regarded eyewear as ordinary consumer goods, but now it should be recognized as medical consumer goods. Consumers hope to receive appropriate medical services for their eyes, not just to get a pair of glasses. This may include myopia prevention and control, strabismus and amblyopia correction, etc. This is why the number of optometry centers, ophthalmology clinics, and ophthalmology hospitals is growing faster and faster.

It should be noted that the transformation of eyewear stores into optometry centers does not mean that the aforementioned growth difficulties will be solved after obtaining the qualifications for transformation. The core competitiveness of optometry centers is actually a professional ophthalmic operation system and professional process capabilities, which also require supporting professional optometry personnel. However, Li Guanping, director of the Optometry and Health Department of Guangzhou Finance and Trade Vocational School, told Jiemian News that there are only more than 30,000 ophthalmologists in China, facing a huge gap, and optometry talent cultivation has become an important link. Promoting the alignment of vocational education with industrial development and establishing industry-recognized technical standards and qualifications certification are key.

Fu Tao also added that not all eyewear stores will transform into optometry centers in the future, and the two models will coexist. Optometry centers will focus more on myopia prevention and control for adolescents, and the proportion of adolescent customers will be higher, while eyewear stores will mainly undertake the commercial behavior of adults purchasing eyewear. Compared with the scale of eye health consumption abroad, the unmet needs of Chinese consumers for vision correction are enormous.