Made Eyewear- Innovating convenience, quality, and personalization in affordable products

Background

Made Eyewear is an online store for customizable eyewear. The website provides a customer-friendly platform that allows users to select the design and customize their glasses, insert their prescription details, send finalized samples to their address to try at home, and finally purchase the glasses they like.

Business Model- What is Made Eyewear’s proposition?

Aspiration

Made Eyewear’s business model is wrapped around providing a convenient and affordable platform for people to design and purchase eyeglasses in a simple and efficient way from the comfort of their home.

Customer journey

In essence, the customer journey goes as follows:

1. Flip through dynamic images of designs
2. Read design descriptions and recommendations and select a couple to try at home
3. [Optional] Select customizable feature(s)
4. Provide prescription details, address, and payment information
5. Receive ‘ready-to-use’ samples of the glasses, free of charge
6. Test them out for 7 days; return the pairs you don’t like, keep the ones you like
7. Made Eyewear automatically charges you for the frames that are not returned after 7 days

Market positioning

Made Eyewear is focused on providing a fashion item that is low cost, high in quality, and meets prescription details. In addition, Made Eyewear has positioned itself closer to customers when compared to competitors since it allows design customizations with no extra cost- it is part of the “experience”.

In addition, the company has positioned itself really well in terms of customer service through free shipping, free trials and returns, and responsiveness to and appreciation of comments and feedback.

 

Operating model- How does Made Eyewear do it?

Manufacturing

One of the key success points for Made Eyewear is that it owns its own manufacturing plant and hence is able to control most of its manufacturing process and quality.

The manufacturing plan is located in China where labor costs are relatively very low compared to other parts of the world. In addition, Made Eyewear was able to form partnerships with Chinese suppliers who provide lower cost equipment and raw material yet match Made Eyewear’s quality standard.

Being at the manufacturing location helps Made Eyewear’s team monitor the manufacturing process very well. Not only does it ensure more control, but it also provides a closer eye to potential improvement areas.

 

Labor

Made Eyewear’s founders and top management are people who are very experienced in the field. Not only are they users of the product, but they have also worked in the Eyewear manufacturing industry. The founder, Kevin, actually worked at a Chinese eyeglass frame manufacturer for sometime given that his father was in that industry. Not only did he get exposure to the industry, but also to the culture and the experience of working with non-English speakers.

People hired at Made Eyewear are trained and skilled individuals who have experience in manufacturing and are very capable of design and production. Different expertise are on board such as designers, engineers, supply chain managers, etc.

Process

Made Eyewear’s operating model is focused on the “all in-house” concept. It is vertically integrated and takes care of all the following without outsourcing:

• Design creation (templates)
• Manufacturing
• Sourcing
• Sales
• Shipping
• Customer Service

This model allows Made Eyewear to take full control over production efficiency, costs, and quality. It also allows the company to provide high customer service through elements such as free shipping, automatic payments, on-time delivery, design adjustments, etc.

Linking back to Made Eyewear’s business model, the above mentioned operating model features allow customers to have a personalized, comfortable, and convenient experience while limiting the costs.

Partnerships and scale

While the “in-house” concept of the operating model ensures control for Made Eyewear, it is also greatly associated with the risk of incurring high costs if no scale is achieved. In order to preempt this issue, Made Eyewear has been forming partnerships with designers for whom it produces frames and runs the process on behalf of its partners from design to delivery.

 

Made Eyewear- A winner

Made Eyewear is a great example of a company that is highly effective in aligning its operating model with its business model and approach to adding value to customers:

1. Vertical Integration- Made Eyewear runs its entire process and hence it is able to deliver on its proposition of low cost, high quality.
2. Keeping it Simple and personal- The operating model and expertise on board allow Made Eyewear to offer a customer experience that is extremely smooth and customizable from design to purchase.
3. Scale, scale, and scale- Made Eyewear’s partnership with designers creates a remarkable growth opportunity and sustainable competitive advantage for the company. It basically ensures scale, expansion, and a large market segment while maintaining low costs.
4. It’s for everyone- The price of any pair of glasses is fixed at $84 and ensures top quality; beats any brand in the market.

 

Sources:

1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX10lwCpdzV2pFYhW7bqZtw
2. https://pando.com/2013/08/05/made-eyewear-takes-the-long-view-on-the-e-commerce-glasses-industry/
3. http://www.madeeyewear.com/