I thought it would be a good idea to include a section on other great ideas whether high tech, low tech or no tech. Just ideas that make you think ‘why didn’t I think of that’.
If you come across any new or emerging product or business ideas that you think should be included please e-mail me at jon@letsgolottie.com Or even some from the past that we take for granted now but which were ground-breaking at the time.
So here we go:
Discount Glasses Online – added 23 November 2006www.glassesdirect.co.uk
Back in 2004 when 23 year-old James Murray Wells was quoted over £150 for a pair of glasses, after the initial shock had warn off, he began to think that was a lot of money for a two bits of glass and a piece of wire. And that maybe there was a business opportunity – undercutting the existing opticians and using the web as the marketing/ distribution channel.
Initial enquiries to people in the industry met with a brick-wall response. Nobody wanted to confirm what James suspected – a huge mark-up, inflating the retail price to almost obscene levels.
Eventually though he got the figures. Cost price £7 or thereabouts. Armed with this knowledge and the legal requirement in the UK for everyone who has an eye-test to be given a card detailing their optical requirements, James set up Glasses Direct to enable customers to buy online using the information already obtained from the eye test. Retail price £17.50.
Unsurprisingly, the trade has not been happy with this up-start exposing the profits being made by the established retailers, but James saw his opportunity and has made a great success of it. In 2005 he was named the top entrepreneur in Startups.co.uk’s list of the best business leaders of the year.
May 1, 2007 at 7:32 pm
There are now several other good quality suppliers of glasses online. I bought a pair from nuglasses http://www.nuglasses.co.uk because I preferred the style of their glasses; and they were excellent. I will be buying from them again.
May 2, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hi John
Thanks for your comment.
NuGlasses looks good, I like the site. I wrote about James & Glasses Direct as I admired his youthful refusal to give up even when the industry establishment seemed to be closing ranks on him. He saw an opportunity to use the web to seriously undercut existing suppliers and make glasses more affordable.
Some industries have been very slow to embrace the web as a distibution channel preferring to maintain high ‘hidden’ profit margins. James challenged this & he and others like NuGlasses are, I’m sure, prospering.
Regards
Jon