Why Optometrist Warehouse could test Australia’s optical sector

ange to customers at an affordable price. According to Larson, the true strength of its offer lies in its ability to bring optometry and pharmacy together under one roof. “One of the problems in Australia in the health sector is the disconnected stakeholders,” Larson told Inside Retail.  “We’ve got a reasonably well-funded healthcare workforce, but we’ve got disparate workforces, and we believe there is a massive opportunity in connecting some of that. “It’s a huge opportunity to leverage the scale and expertise of Chemist Warehouse to deliver significant disruptive savings.” By bringing together these two aspects of pharmacy retail, Optometrist Warehouse would be able to tap into each customers’ health data, and how that data  correlates to each of its brands.  For example, Larson explained that eye complications related to diabetes are a leading cause of blindness in Australia, and there is currently no systematic way of dealing with that.  However, by utilising a unified customer database, Chemist Warehouse would be able to know when a customer has diabetes, and hasn’t had a recent eye exam. It can then recommend that customers book in a time-slot. “If we can combine [our trained optometrists] with the Chemist’s Warehouse pharmacy team, we could deliver better outcomes for the group’s customers, improve our retention, and see better sales as a result,” Larson said.  By combining pharmacy and optometry, the business intends on creating  a more holistic health service offering for its customers than any of its associated businesses could do alone. “Disruption happens when someone can solve a customer’s problem that isn’t being solved, and [we see] some big problems out there. I think we can focus on and target most of these problems.” A clear vision Australia has a rapidly ageing population, of which over 13 million people have been diagnosed with less-than-perfect eyesight and require optometry services, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.   With cost of living growing along with inflation, and further rate hikes expected in the future, more Australians will be seeking to find ways to cut their costs: putting a value chain such as Optometrist Warehouse in a good place to grow its market. For now, the brand has only one Optometrist Warehouse store in Malvern, Victoria. However, there are plans for three to four stores to be operational by the end of 2023, with further stores likely to launch once the Optometrist Warehouse model is better understood. “There are problems that need to be solved, because they haven’t been solved by anyone,” Larson explained. “We’ve got to work out how our pharmacists refer patients to our optometrists.. There are pathways that exist, but we’ve got to systemise them and make sure that we understand how it’ll work.” According to Retail Oasis’ Brian Walker, the push to bring more aspects of healthcare under one roof “makes perfect sense”, and will give Optometrist Warehouse a leg up against its competitors. “Chemist Warehouse currently has well over 30 per cent of all pharmacy transactions in this country. [We] had a large number of independent pharmacies and it ran a steamroller through that sector,” Walker told Inside Retail.  Walker said that a successful launch requires brand recognition, market differentiation and capital – and noted that Chemist Warehouse can deliver on all three fronts.  “I think it’ll be mopping up independents, frankly. They’ll have a steady supply of optometrists who may well find it beneficial to join into the Optometrist Warehouse brand for the buying power alone,” Walker said.