Discounter Hans Anders decided to change strategy and started selling fashion brands. DKNY, Kenzo, Pierre Cardin and later Tommy Hilfiger were added to the collection and heavily promoted in print and on television. Luxottica’s Sunglass Hut took over all selling points in the Bijenkorf department stores and became the main competitor for independent opticians and chains which sell branded sunglasses. Talking about purchases. Marchon acquired Dragon Eyewear and Scandinavian Eyewear. HAL became the owner of Het Huis and enlarged its imperium in the Netherlands. Het Huis and Eyewish will become one major chain called Het Huis Eyewish and together with Pearle the HAL now is definitely the main supplier of eyewear in the country. Internationally the acquisition of Marcolin by PAI Partners was breaking news. After HAL took over Safilo, this is the second major Italian supplier which can’t make it on its own. Luxottica is the only one doing well and publishing record figures quarter after quarter. Remarkable was the acquisition of a part of the shares of Italian chain Salmoiraghi & Vigano including the right to buy the rest of the shares later. Soon Luxottica will have that many outlets owned by itself, that is doesn’t need any other selling point. In Belgium the company had to face a major protest of opticians due to its policy to oblige opticians to buy certain amounts of certain brands in order to get the right to purchase others. Rumours say this year Dutch opticians will only be allowed to purchase Ray-Ban sunglasses if purchasing Ray-Ban prescription frames as well. This strategy harms independent opticians and influences their store policies while others like newspaper Telegraaf, bank ABN-AMRO and many websites are free to sell Ray-Ban the way they want it. Just have a look at www.rbspecialist.nl where you can buy a Large Metal for only 118 euro. Independent Opticians offering these prices will hear that they are not allowed to do so. How long will this last? Luxottica caused even more commotion when it announced the purchase of Alain Mikli. Nobody yet knows the impact of this acquisition for the distribution of Alain Mikli and Starck Eyes. Now that we discuss all this business developments; Eyelove is back on track with an aggressive advertising strategy and even eye measurements at DA drugstores. BRIL.nl presented a similar idea and asked top opticians to join. As far as we know the concept as well as the website have been restyled in the last months to meet the desires of opticians and kill the complaints about the original idea. We can’t wait to see the results. Top Vision was victim of a serious fire which damaged the complete building where the company was hosted but recovered very quickly. More tomorrow…
Looking back at 2012; part 2
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