All Retail articles
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News briefs
Mister Spex announces CEO change
Mister Spex has announced the appointment of Tobias Krauss, currently chairman of the company’s supervisory board, to the position of Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1. Krauss has been a member of Mister Spex’ supervisory board since 2020 and its chairman since July 2024. He has also been serving as ...
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News briefs
Synsam Group partners with Swedish business school
Synsam Group has signed a partnership with the Stockholm School of Economics, becoming a Retail Club Partner of the school’s Center for Retailing which focused on research and education. Through the program, the leading Nordic optical retail group said that it will provide SSE students with insights on its ongoing ...
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News briefs
Boots future uncertain as WBA changes hands
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Sycamore Partners, a US private equity firm. WBA operates over 12,000 healthcare and beauty shops across the US, Europe and Latin America, including approximately 1,900 Boots stores in the UK. The company is also the major ...
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ArticleSynsam posts double-digit Q4 growth, hits record Ebit in full year
The Nordic retail group’s performance was again driven by its spectacles subscription plans whose annual sales increased by 13 percent year on year to account for 53 percent of total group revenue.
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Will the French buy recycled glasses at their local post office?
Lunettes de Zac, a French startup specializing in the recycling of used glasses, is exploring an unusual partnership with La Poste, the French postal service. During the collaboration’s one-year trial phase, over a hundred post offices in France will display a collection box for visitors to drop their old pair ...
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Eyes + More targets small and medium-sized German cities to grow network
In a first major move since the company was acquired by investment fund KKR last year, Nexeye has announced plans to open 150 new Eyes + More stores in Germany in the next four years, with 30 openings scheduled before the end of 2025. Nexeye said that it was planning ...
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Indian grapevine abuzz with $10bn valuation for Lenskart ahead of rumored IPO
Lenskart has long been rumored to be considering an initial public offering (IPO) to further accelerate its development. While the group has not made an offical announcement yet, several Indian business news outlets have reported that the India-based optical retailer was preparing to file its IPO draft papers in May ...
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ArticleAmazon enters the prescription eyewear segment in Germany
After years of rumors and speculations, the e-commerce behemoth is entering the prescription eyewear market for good, starting with Germany, where its subsidiary announced earlier this week that it has started selling prescription eyeglasses. Amazon Optics, as the service is branded, is offering on amazon.de a wide selection of branded ...
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News briefs
Synsam Group opens Denmark’s largest optical store
Synsam Group is opening a 449-square meter store in central Copenhagen, Denmark, under its Profil Optik banner. The company says the new location is the largest optical store in the country. It will offer over 4,000 frames – branded eyewear and in-house collections – including a large selection of sports ...
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ArticleKits CEO: 'We are building an eyewear business for the customer of tomorrow'
On its Investor Day last September, Kits Eyecare concluded its presentation with a bold and somewhat cryptic claim: “Setting our sights on 500 in 5.” This made for an obvious first question when we had to opportunity to sit down with Roger Hardy, co-founder and CEO of the Canadian-based pure ...
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News briefs
Krys Group opened record number of shops last year
Krys Group has announced that it has opened 93 new optical stores and transferred or expanded 30 in 2024, reaching a new record high. The French voluntary group claims that these openings accounted for half of the new optical stores’ creation in France last year and enabled it fo further ...
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Multiópticas president has passed away
Carlos Piñeiro Franco, president of Multiópticas, died on Jan. 4, aged 58, several Spanish websites have reported. He was the third-generation leader of the company that he joined in 1989 and where he became president in 2016. Multiópticas has a distribution network of over 600 opticians in Spain but is ...
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News briefs
Two small independent retail groups merge in the Benelux
BrilGroup and ClearVision, two relatively small retail groups operating in partnership with independent opticians and hearing aid specialists in the Netherlands and Belgium, have agreed to merge. The new entity, called ClearVision Group, has a retail footprint of 41 stores ClearVision Group’s strategy is to acquire a majority stake in ...
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News briefs
Etnia Barcelona reportedly plans new international stores
Etnia Barcelona is planning to open between five and six flagship stores outside Spain, according to a report by Moda en Gafas, the Spanish trade publication. Targeted cities include Los Angeles, New York and Miami in the US, Paris and Milan in Europe. The Barcelona-based eyewear brand already operates two ...
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News briefs
Kering Eyewear and Paris Miki partner for first Lindberg shop in Japan
Kering Eyewear and Paris Miki have partnered to open LINDBERG by PARIS MIKI, the first optical store in Japan dedicated to the Danish eyewear brand that was acquired by the Italian luxury eyewear group in 2021. Located in the smart Ginza district, Tokyo, the shop opened its doors last week ...
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ArticleZoff first public financial results show double-digit growth pace and higher margins
Reporting its financial results for the first time since its Initial Public Offering (IPO) last month, Japan-based retail group Zoff has announced a 11.8 percent year-on-year hike in revenue to 33.6 billion Japanese yen (€255.5m) for the first nine months of fiscal 2024. For the third quarter alone, total sales ...
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ArticleJapan optical retail market value inch up on cautious price hikes
The IOFT eyewear trade show, which took place in Tokyo from Oct. 15 to 17, was the opportunity for us to assess the dynamics of the Japanese eyewear market, in collaboration with Gankyo Publishing, a local B2B eyewear publisher and research company. The eyewear show itself was this year again ...
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ArticleSolid organic growth and US acquisitions keep Fielmann in double-digit growth gear
International markets have come to account for over a third of the German-based optical retail group. The US is already the second-largest market for the group, with annual sales projected at over €250 million.
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ArticleZenni, Eyebot using automation to remove eye-test obstacles
The companies have teamed up to field eye-scanning kiosks.
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ArticleFrench opticians’ association challenges health insurances’ proxy on optical network tender call
The Rassemblement des Opticiens de France (ROF) points at some possible irregularities, both in terms of commercial relations and of personal data protection, in the last tender call by Santéclair for French opticians to join its optical network. The dispute illustrates one specificity of the French optical market.
