Coastal Contacts Expands from e-commerce to Physical Locations

Coastal.com sets itself apart from other e-commerce companies by breaking ground Canadian online optical retailer Coastal Contacts is now setting its sights on opening bricks-and-mortar locations in major cities across Canada after a successful test run with a shop in Vancouver, reports Yahoo! Finance Canada's Dawn Walton.   Roger Hardy, the founder and chief executive officer of Vancouver-based retailer, which claims sales in Canada of one of every five contact lenses and one in every 10 pairs of eyeglasses, says the company's first physical store has proved to be more successful than just a, "short-term lab experiment." The company will have two locations in its hometown of Vancouver by this fall.   The existing store, located on Vancouver's busy Robson Street, has a boutique size of about 1,000-square-feet of retail space. It has been ringing in sales of between $2,000 and $2,500 per square foot since it opened in March.   According to Hardy, Coastal's stores will have optical professionals on staff and will offer the same deals that are available through its online presence. Within a year, the company hopes to have plans well underway for eight to 10 stores.   The expansion begins with a store on Vancouver's trendy West 4th Ave. set to open in September, and a replacement store on Robson Street that will open this fall when the lease expires at its current location.   "This is not a new concept for online retailers," says Sheila Broughton, a consumer products analyst with PI Financial. "What Coastal is eyeing is part of a trend to return to retailing roots. It tends to be part of a number of online retailers' marketing strategies to build awareness and drive sales."   Investors have watched Coastal's revenue rise - second-quarter sales grew to $53.7 million for the three months ended April 30, 2013, up 11 per cent in the same period a year before – but profits have suffered from heavy eyeglasses promotions. In the second quarter of 2013, the company rang in a loss of $6.9-million or 23 cents per share, Walton reports. But Hardy sees a bright future, given the growing population of elderly Canadians and their associated eye care needs.   At present, Coastal's sales mix is about 70 per cent contacts but Hardy said that within the next five years the more lucrative eyeglasses market should overtake that.   To read the complete article, please click on here