All Retail articles
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Article
Essilor France benchmarks the performance of its partner opticians vs. others
According to a report commissioned by Essilor France to the research company Galileo Business Consulting every year since 2011, opticians partnering with the lens maker in France have been performing better on average than the other optical shops in terms of revenues and gross margin progression since 2007. ...
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Article
ZVA sees German market down 7.4 percent last year
Like for most other business sectors, 2020 turned to be a difficult year for the ophthalmic optics market, as shown by the latest figures published by the Zentralverband der Augenoptiker und Optometristen ( ZVA ), the German association of opticians and optometrists. Overall, the German eyewear sector faced a ...
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Article
Vision Group interested in Essilux and GV Italian stores
Vision Group , one of the leading Italian retail players, said that it was interested in studying the takeover of the 174 Italian stores to be divested if EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision eventually agree on the planned takeover. The divestment, which is a prerequisite for the European Commission to ...
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Article
Acuitis’ door count passes the 100 mark
Acuitis , the French banner of optical and hearing aids’ shops, kept opening new franchised stores at a steady pace last year in spite of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Adding 14 new retail locations, the Acuitis door count reached a total of 103 stores in ...
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News briefs
Atol opens a flagship store on the Champs-Élysées
Atol , a French voluntary group of opticians with about 750 retail locations, opened a new flagship store for its premium format last week in the Galerie des Arcades, a famous shopping acade on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris. The 85-square meter showcases the sunglasses’ collection on the first floor ...
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Article
French social security expects more impact from its eyecare reform in the future
In a roundtable with a French journalists’ association last week, Frank von Lennep , the country’s social security director said that 14 percent of eyeglasses’ frames and 12 percent of corrective lenses sold had been picked from the Class A products’ list since the implementation of the 100% Santé healthcare ...
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News briefs
German optical retailers’ customer service performance analyzed
Focus , a German business magazine, looked at the performance in terms of customer service for 22,000 companies operating in 150 different sectors in the country. The research published a couple of weeks ago was based on the analysis by artificial intelligence tools of tens of thousands of online messages ...
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Article
Gentle Monster mixes eyewear with cosmetics, cakes and artworks in new retail format
Gentle Monster , the South-Korean brand of luxury eyewear which is famous for the unusual design of its stores that integrate large contemporary artworks and futuristic robots, unveiled at the end of last month its new multi-brand retail format in the Gangnam district of Seoul in the ...
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News briefs
Afflelou continues its expansion in Spain
Look Vision , the Spanish trade publication on our sector, reports that Alain Afflelou opened ten new shops in the country in the last nine months, including 8 franchised stores. The retail group plans to continue its development this year in Spain, its second largest market after France, adding ...
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News briefs
Nau! opens two stores in Saudi Arabia
Nau! opened two additional stores in Saudi Arabia through its local partner Magrabi . A 140 square meter store was opened in Riyadh and a 105 square meter location in Dammam. Thanks to the partnership with Magrabi, the Italian optical retailer now has five stores in Saudi Arabia, ...
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News briefs
Milleocchiali buys 5 Optistar stores
The Italian optical retailer Milleocchiali has bought five of the six stores of its rival Optistar . Three of the stores are located in Rome, one is in the nearby town of Tivoli and one in Isernia. Optistar, founded in 1969, will continue operating a store in Rome. ...
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News briefs
Fielmann opens 34th store in Italy
The German optical retailer Fielmann opened its 34th store in Italy and the sixth in the Veneto region. The store was opened in the center of Padua. It covers more than 270 square meters and carries over 850 models.
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News briefs
Mykita opens second New York store
Mykita has opened its second store in New York and the fourth in the U.S. The new shop is located on Madison Avenue and covers about 50 square meters. The German eyewear company also has stores in New York’s Soho district, Los Angeles and Washington. Overall, Mykita has ...
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News briefs
Mister Spex now has 35 German stores
With the opening of a store in Göttingen, in the region of Lower Saxony, Mister Spex has extended its German network to 35 stores, of which 16 were opened in 2020. The new store covers a sales area of more than 100 square meters and carries over 800 ...
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News briefs
French opticians in large malls ordered to close
As part of the new Covid-19 regulations implemented by the French government on Jan. 30, all shops operating in malls of 20,000 square meters and more have to close, to the exception of food retailers and pharmacies, but not opticians. All optical shops, regardless of their locations, had been considered ...
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News briefs
Hallmann opens new flagship, headquarters in Flensburg
The German optics and hearing aid retailer Optik Hallmann is opening a new flagship and headquarters in its hometown of Flensburg, in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. The previous headquarters were also situated in Flensburg, which sits on the Danish border, but the move will enable the company to ...
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News briefs
Brexit controls suspended in Northern Ireland
Controls introduced in Northern Ireland due to Brexit were suspended Monday evening in the ports of Belfast and Larne due to threats to personnel. Mid and East Antrim council on Monday night announced it was withdrawing 12 of its staff at Larne port with immediate effect due to concerns ...
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Article
U.K., EU trade heavily affected by Brexit, worse may be ahead
Brexit has complicated life for merchants in the European Union exporting to the U.K., which highlights new paperwork requirements, higher administrative costs, delivery delays and uncertainty about what the rules of the game are now that the U.K. is no longer a member of the single market since Jan. 1. ...
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News briefs
Germans’ willingness to buy is in “freefall”
The propensity to buy of German consumers is “in freefall,” according to the think tank GfK . Hit by strict Covid-19 related lockdowns, consumer confidence in Germany is seen falling to -15.6 in February from -7.5 in January, which was revised from an original reading of -7.3. “The ...
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News briefs
Italy approves a €50 voucher for the purchase of eyeglasses, contact lenses
The Italian parliament approved on Dec. 30 the 2021 budget that includes a €50 voucher for the purchase of prescription eyewear and contact lenses for low-income people. The decree implementing the voucher still has to be issued by the health ministry, in coordination with the finance ministry. The voucher ...