One of the best kept secrets of the eyewear industry is: why are spectacle frames so damn expensive? Even in India, spectacle frames retail at exorbitant prices and you know that their markups are huge. Yet, you cannot do anything about it. Why? The answer is this: the worlds eyewear industry is dominated by just one company - Luxottica, a little-known Italian firm listed on the NYSE. It controls over 80 percent of the worlds eyewear market. It not only makes frames for the worlds largest fashion brands (Chanel, Armani, Prada, Donna Karan, Vogue, Versace, Burberry, etc) it also owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, LensCrafters, and even North Americas second largest eyewear insurance company EyeMed. Wait, theres more. The optical departments at Sears and Target, two of Americas biggest supermarket chains, are run by Luxottica. The Indian and Chinese markets, too, are dominated by Luxottica. It is to eyewear what DeBeers is to diamonds. Oakley tried to fight the Italian giant but lost so badly that it eventually had to sell out to Luxottica. Watch this 60 Minutes report to know why you are being suckered into paying so much for your dainty pair of spectacle frames. The video is from 2012, but still relevant. Thanks to Sachin Kalbag for the link & this summary.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 05:01:18 +0000
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