Ray-ban is an iconic brand where people ask for in stores but unfortunately in the Netherlands it is used more and more for promotions of non-branch related parties and is offered with major discounts at authorized websites. This undermines the “coolness” of the brand and harms the confidence of opticians who (have to) sell it for regular retail prices. Last week in our yearly overview of last year we already asked ourselves how long this would last and ironically the year has hardly begun and the first promotion is there. Until the beginning of March we can get a Ray-Ban worth 129 euro for only 29 euros at Het Huis Eyewish. The only thing we have to do is order a car insurance at the ABN-AMRO bank. We guess Eyewish aims for traffic as they will not earn a lot of money with Ray-Ban’s for only 29 euros. When independent opticians did some (price) promotions with Ray-Ban last year , they immediately got a reaction from Luxottica because this kind of promotions would harm the brand image. Rather incredible when you look at this one. These days opticians more as ever, need strong and reliable partners and suppliers should use their strong brands to reward loyal retailers with as much traffic and business as possible instead of disadvantage them by offering those brands at cheap prices everywhere.
