CLINICAL

  optical

Rethinking Your Frame Inventory

Three strategies to maximize your product mix

DAVE ZIEGLER, O.D.

The average optometric practice displays close to 1,000 frames. Typically, each vendor is given some amount of board space, with the optical staff selecting the desired styles via the help of the frame representative. But frame selection is rarely based on real data. For a part of our practice that generates up to half our income, you’d think there would be more of a strategy involved.

Here are three strategies to maximize your frame inventory.

1 Find your “All Stars”

Patients are not as interested in having 1,000 different frame choices as they are in seeing fewer styles with more color options. This is no different than purchasing a pair of blue jeans. Most jean lines offer four or five fits in multiple colors. This simplifies the buying process. You don’t really want to try on dozens of different brands and styles of jeans, do you?

This strategy of reducing the patient’s choices allows you to focus on a smaller number of frames per vendor while getting better frame turns. To do this, ask each optical staff member to list his or her top 10 favorite frames for each vendor. Then, cross-reference their lists against the vendor’s 10 best sellers, and create your “All Stars” for that company. Return the frames that don’t make the list, and offer more colors within those 10 popular styles.

2 Vendor allocation

Now that you have selected your “All Stars” for each company, decide how many spaces you want to allocate for each vendor on your frame boards — and stick to those numbers. When a rep tries to convince you to increase your inventory with his or her product, realize that it comes at the expense of another vendor.

We track each vendor by the number of board spaces that have been allocated to it, the average price for that brand, a one- or two-word descriptor of the brand to prevent style overlap, the top 10 frame styles and the colors for each of those frames we display. When we attend a frame show, we know exactly what price range and style of frames we want to add to our inventory, so there is not a duplication of styles and price ranges.

3 Use the “just in time” ordering system

In our practice, we use the “just in time” inventory system. Specifically, we reorder all the frames we sold each week on the corresponding Friday. We keep only enough back stock to fill the holes on the frame board that are created each week by the frames sold. This strategy reduces your inventory carrying cost and helps keep your best sellers on the board. Avoid the temptation to buy large stock orders of frames with the lure of 30-60-90 billing.

Winning strategies

Using these strategies, you can create a streamlined, data-driven system for your frame inventory. Not only will you increase the control of your spending, you’ll increase patient satisfaction by offering the frames styles they want in their desired price range and colors. OM

DR. ZIEGLER IS A SENIOR PARTNER AT ZIEGLER & LEFFINGWELL EYECARE IN MILWAUKEE, WISC., AND A FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF OPTOMETRY. E-MAIL HIM AT DAVEAZIEGLER@GMAIL.COM, OR VISIT TINYURL.COM/OMCOMMENT TO COMMENT.