Best contact lens prices?

Building a better contact lens site

• International Internet Advertising Services Inc (iias) is a full service Internet marketing and web development company located in BC, Canada. Although we are professionals at what we do, we find it progressive to engage additional resources as a source of new ideas and information. This information is also valuable to our clients as a third party opinion. We are currently contracted to build a contact lens website for one of our clients. This site will allow users to order contacts online and have them shipped to their home. We intend to sell a full range of contacts, including colored, toric, progressive and special effects. We are also looking to sell some accessories such as sunglasses and solution. We are intending to sell to both Canada and the US. There are presently a large number of contact lens sites offering this service. Below is a list of some sites we have found to be major players in this market, or that have designs and/or functionality we found appealing. We understand that marketing, site usability and price competitiveness are important. User conversions and sales are vital, as we will be investing a large amount of time and resources into this project, and want to take the steps needed to ensure success. What can we do to stand apart from the current contact lens sites and become an online retail leader in this industry? Samples sites: www.clearlycontacts.ca www.1-save-on-lens.com www.justlenses.com www.lens.com www.aclens.com www.1800contacts.com Please do not limit reviews to these sites, they are for reference only. We welcome and would appreciate the inclusion of other sites.

• Answer:

  Dear iias, The most immediate way for your site to distinguish itself from other online contact-lens shops is with a novel design. Nearly every such site I have encountered sports the same look on the home page: brand names listed vertically down the left side, basic navigation across the top, and a close-up picture of a female model near the middle. Among the sites you listed as well as the competing sites I found, one exception is 1800contacts, which stands out in my mind just because it looks different. 1800contacts: Home http://www.1800contacts.com The four big buttons along the bottom are visually striking, and they lead to editorial content that will get some viewers involved in the site. However, I find 1800contacts lacking in that it doesn't allow for quick comparison of pricing and product selection with other sites, since the lens categories aren't listed in a comparable format on the front page. I find that Wal-Mart's contact-lens store gets it right with a straightforward layout that makes it easy to find products quickly, while its unique minimalist appearance makes it memorable. Observe that popular contact-lens models are grouped by brand name at left, but all models are also accessible through the selection box at center. Note also the handy "Do you wear a different brand in each eye?" link below the selection box. Wal-Mart: Contact Lenses http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=116631 If you must have a photograph on the front page, consider something different from the single female model. How about a group of people, or an animal with high visual acuity, such as an owl or a hawk? Visitors who are overwhelmed by the range of choices or confused by the site design often look for a link labeled "Site Map" or "All Products". A number of contact-lens shops have an "All Products" link, but few place it prominently near the top-left corner, and most omit pricing information from the list, forcing visitors to click through for individual products rather than comparing all prices on the same page. Furthermore, in many cases the product listing is a hierarchical list rather than a flat list. For instance, Lens.com has a complicated hierarchical list, and Coastal Contacts has a more useful flat list but without prices. Lens.com: All Products http://www.lens.com/common/showallbrands.asp Coastal Contacts: All Products http://www.coastalcontacts.com/fulllist.cfm A superior all-product listing is at Discount Contact Lenses -- although the link is poorly placed and confusingly named "Contact Lens Quick Index -- distinguished by a flat layout, visible pricing, and individual product links all on the same page. This is the list visitors are more likely to bookmark and revisit than the others. Discount Contact Lenses: Order Contact Lenses http://discountcontactlenses.com/ordercontactlenses.asp Another way to distinguish your site and to encourage visitors to make a purchase would be to include a comparison shopper's guide that explains the range of options in each product category, leading the visitor toward a concrete selection. To consider an example from a different field, HP has a page for prospective customers who are confused by the wide selection of digital cameras on sale. HP Digital Photography: Choosing an HP digital camera http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/dpc/take_photos/choosing_hp_dig_cam.html A similar page for contact-lens shoppers would explain how to interpret the doctor's prescription, if applicable, and how to choose among the various options within the prescribed category. To bring new products to a visitor's attention and to increase order amounts, you could show related products alongside individual product listings. The most familiar examples of ecommerce upselling are on Amazon, where a given book listing, for example, offers a bundle purchase under the "Better Together" heading, and a list of similar books under "Customers who bought this item also bought". Amazon: Gates of Fire http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055338368X/qid=1146779169/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/103-8257266-7362234?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 A different way to upsell, which is perhaps better applicable to contact lenses, is TigerDirect's practice of showing compatible products with the individual product. For instance, when the visitor is looking at a CPU listing, the "May We Recommend" sidebar shows a compatible operating system, memory, motherboard, and so on. For a contact-lens purchase, compatible products might include a carrying case, solution, and backup glasses. TigerDirect: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1446873 To keep visitors coming back on a regular basis, you might like to add some editorial content to the site. The site operators could contract with an eye-care professional or a shopping specialist to write a monthly column with articles that spotlight new products or explain a contact-lens technology in layman's terms. As a point of comparison, Shoppers Drug Mart offers a bimonthly feature called Let's Talk and a series of occasional articles called HealthWATCH. Similar articles on a contact-lens site would be more narrowly focused. They could also make themselves more useful by including links to product pages in the online store, instead of just mentioning in-store product availability as Shoppers Drug Mart does. Shoppers Drug Mart: Let's Talk http://www.shoppersdrugmart.ca/english/health_wellness/health_centres/diabetes/index.html Shoppers Drug Mart: HealthWATCH http://www.shoppersdrugmart.ca/english/health_wellness/health_centres/natural_health/index.html Finally, if your contact-lens store is very competitive on price, consider adding a price-comparison table. The following sites show a limited selection of prices on the front page, but you could offer something more exhaustive on a dedicated page. Discount Contact Lenses http://discountcontactlenses.com/ Vision Direct http://www.visiondirect.com/ Ship My Contacts http://shipmycontacts.com/index.asp Observe that Ship My Contacts names its competitor, which is not necessarily a good strategy on the front page, since it can divert visitors to other stores. On the other hand, this can be a very effective tactic when it comes to individual product listings, where the visitor is already deep into the site and is actively considering a specific product. Here, if the product is a bargain, you could display a table showing current prices of the same product at well-known competitors, thereby highlighting the advantage of buying from your site. It has been a pleasure to answer your question. If you find fault with the accuracy or completeness of my research, don't hesitate to advise me through a Clarification Request prior to rating this answer. Regards, leapinglizard Search strategy: contact lens mail order ://www.google.com/search?hs=BC6&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=contact+lens+mail+order&btnG=Search contacts online ://www.google.com/search?hs=yWl&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=contacts+online&btnG=Search shop contact lens ://www.google.com/search?hs=srQ&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=shop+contact+lens&btnG=Search