Frames are the art pieces of the optical. They allow patients to showcase their personalities, and having the right frames can even bring more patients into the optical.

With that, though, comes the challenge of having the right frames available, and with so many considerations, including patient needs, styles, and vendors, it can be an overwhelming experience to effectively manage your inventory.

In this article, I discuss how to best choose what frames to purchase, set up your frame board, and analyze product information, to improve the frame selection experience for your patients.

What frames to purchase

Everything you purchase should directly align with the frame needs of your patients. 

To better understand this, get to know the neighborhood around your practice. Is it a wealthy area, middle-class, or lower income? What kind of cars do you see your patients typically driving, and what kind of insurance do they carry? This can help determine the price range of the frames you carry.

Taking note of your patient base also helps determine what style of frames would be most helpful to stock. For instance, my patient demographics tend to be older people, so we don’t carry an extensive amount of children’s frames. We also tend to see more slightly more women than men, so we carry about 10% more women’s styles than men’s.

It can be easy to get caught up in the “emotion” of frame buying. There are pressures to keep up with style trends and please a frame sales representative. While frame reps can be helpful telling you what sells in other offices – because those styles do become popular for a reason – it is most important to focus on what frames and styles your patients are already buying in your practice, and stock those. Their tastes are what is most important, not yours or the patients in other practices.

If I only purchased frames that I would wear, they would be bold colors and trendy styles. While some of these options are nice to have on frame boards, the majority of my patients gravitate toward neutral colors and styles that are more “timeless” than trendy. Even though I love a particular style, I have to take the emotion out of it by thinking what my patients want and not what I would wear.

Lastly, a good rule of thumb for the number of frames to buy is one frame per square foot of optical space. 

Assess frame board real estate

Frame boards house a lot of money. Every single frame is a piece of real estate that must contribute to “paying the rent.” Your frames must turn, and be profitable. Every frame must have a purpose. Be cautious of “free frames” from sales vendors. Even if a frame is “free,” it could be tying up key real estate if it isn’t turning. 

Additionally, be cautious of using an EHR or optical software program to manage your frame board inventory. While it can be tempting to have a program automate frame selection for you, doing so may leave money on the table. For example, in my experience, I have found that some of the software programs may indirectly favor some frames over others instead of managing from a place of what is best for the practice.

While my practice does use reports from our EHR system, we supplement it with our own performance evaluations – we monitor frame turns every 6 months, and if a frame hasn’t turned more than 3 times in that span we place it on a “watch list” for another 3-6 months. If the turn cycle has not improved, we exchange it or replace it with another frame option.

Analyzing data

Our frame inventory started off as a trial and error until we had data to analyze. Once we had about 6 months of sales data, we ran reports to analyze what frames were actually selling and which frames weren’t. Once we identified these high and low sellers (using data from our EHR and performance evaluations), we checked in with our opticians to see what patients were saying. Having optical sale data combined with feedback from our opticians gave us the information needed to start better managing our inventory.

Other important information to have about your optical includes: how many pieces are on the board, how much is in backstock, what inventory is hidden in a drawer/cabinet, the price-point distribution, the number of pieces per brand, the average frame turns for every frame, and the frequency of appointments with sales representatives. 

Having all this information is critical, and can help answer questions such as:

1. Is the optical underperforming because of a lack of selection?

2. What are selling habits of the optical team?

3. Are there too many discounts being offered?

4. What frames are not meeting the needs of the patients?

5. Are there bulk purchasing advantages to save on shipping and frame returns? 

Maximize patient satisfaction

No matter the size of the optical, frame board and inventory management can be a complex and labor-intensive process. The steps above can help ensure you are maximizing your patient satisfaction and optical efficiency. OM

Dr. QUINT is a co-owner of Smart Eye Care in Maine. She is passionate about entrepreneurship and optometric practice management. She was the 2019 Theia Young O.D. Award winner and consults for Allergan.