Anyone using glasses would definitely know about the hassle one has to go through for their ideal pair of specs. To pick a desirable spec one has to visit an optician then have to choose a frame that’s trend-worthy out of varying styles and designs, then wait for several days for the customized glasses. If we put it in a different way it takes a lot of time, effort, energy, and patience just to get one pair of specs suitable for them.
For a long time, this space remained very unorganized so when Lenskart started they had a huge market to work with. Now they have become one of those Indian brands that revolutionized the industry they work in gaining the fame of Unicorn in the eyewear space.
Here I will discuss the incredible success story of Lenskart.
Lenskart Success Story
Start of the journey
Back in 2010, Peyush Bansal along with two of his friends Amit Chaudhury and Sumeet Kapahi started Lenskart. Peyush Bansal after completing his graduation from McGill University, Canada started working for Microsoft as a developer.
After returning to India while he was pursuing post-graduation from IIM Bangalore, he founded Valyoo Technologies, which is now the parent company of Lenskart. SearchMyCampus was the first business portal of Valyoo technologies launched in 2007, which aimed to help out students seeking books, internships, accommodation, etc.
Peyush while helping US clients clutch an expansion in India as well, found a loophole or an opportunity in the eyewear industry. After a bit of thorough research, he quickly realized this segment hasn’t been targeted by leading E-commerce brands like amazon. Keeping this in mind he launched Flyrr.com in the US with eyewear as the exclusive USP. With the success and positive response of Flyrr.com, he decided to test the same in the Indian market, thus Lenskart got launched in 2010.
How does Lenskart work?
Lenskart is the leading e-commerce company in India for eyewear that manages online optical stores. Unlike most optical brands in India, they operate in both digital and offline spaces. Any person can hop in the offline store where they provide 3-D trial technique using AI and also provide hands-on experience through thousands of offline stores for those customers who are a bit skeptical regarding the quality of the product or the design patterns.
Not only this they also provide a free trial of their product where you can book any glasses from their website and their agent will visit your place and would let you have the trial, they are also providing “home eye checkup” never done by any brands before.
It follows an inventory-led business model where it passes on these designs to its manufacturers then Lenskart handles the supply chain both of these help to keep the product cost under control.
With more than 5000 different models of eyewear including sunglasses, reading glasses, computer glasses, contact lenses, anti-glare, frames, glasses for kids with a varying range of styles be it retro, classic, metallic, rimless or so on, along with 14 days replacement policy and a lot of offers throughout a year has been a great business strategy for Lenskart.
Target Population/ Market
In India, almost 1/3rd of the population requires some sort of eyewear be it specs or sunglasses, or computer glasses but surprisingly only around 25% of the population actually addresses the issue.
The eyewear industry in India is highly unorganized, and there’s a target market of 18,000-20,000 crore of which around 10% is organized. Among the organized entities, Lenskart is the biggest player holding around 70% of the total organized market share. Other competitors like GKB optical, Titan eye+, etc. are getting knocked off very easily by the unicorn with their aggressive marketing strategy and innovative products and services.
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The main challenge is to channel the huge population from the unorganized sectors, offering lower quality products, knock-offs, and cheap products to the organized sector.
Lenskart funding
As per the reports of April 11, 2022, in the latest round of funding Lenskart raised a whopping sum of $100 million, the round was led by Alpha Wave Incubation earlier known as Falcon Edge. The previous funding came in on July 19, 2021, worth $220 million led by Alpha Wave Global and Temasek. Softbank vision invested $275 million on 20 December 2019 and from the secondary market, around raised $95 million.
As of December today, Lenskart has raised $874.1 million from investors and has made 6 investments.
Future Plans
The aim of Lenskart is to reach to masses and to provide a “vision to India” by building a low-cost franchise model starting from just 20 lakhs by introducing Lenskart lite. It is now focusing on expanding and having an acute presence in tier 2, tier 3 cities.
By the end of the next five years, Lenskart aims to open more than 2000 stores and at least 500 more stores in the next 2 years.
Hope you like the Lenskart Success story. Please give your opinion in a comment.
