Warby Parker: A brand born out of the founder’s plight
In this tech-driven era, we all have gotten into the habit of online shopping. Starting from groceries and home appliances to games, apparels and accessories, we prefer to go digital. One of the accessories that many of us buy online is eyeglass. The online eyeglass retail industry has witnessed massive growth over the last decade. Today, we are going to take you through the fascinating backstory of a US-based brand that has driven this growth significantly. Yes, we are talking about Warby Parker. They started offering high-quality glasses online in reasonable prices and transformed the eyeglasses industry. Here is how they did the wonders!
Warby Parker is born
In early 2008, Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andy Hunt and Jeff Raider were MBA students at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Management. During a college backpacking trip, Dave Gilboa lost his spectacles. The expense of replacing glasses was so high that he spent the first semester of graduate school without glasses. This incident triggered an idea in the mind of his friend Blumenthal. It was he who suggested that they launch an online eyeglasses retail business, and they started by participating in the Venture Initiation Program at Wharton. The programme started in February 2010 with a $2,500 startup investment. This was just the beginning of Warby Parker!
The naming of Warby Parker
Are you wondering how the name Warby Parker came about? Well, in 2009, one of the founders, David Gilboa chanced upon an exhibition on American poet and author Jack Kerouac at the New York Public Library. At the exhibition, several of Kerouac's writings and journals were on display. In one of the journals, David found two interesting names: Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. He merged the two names creating Warby Parker.
Innovative business strategy
After its initial launch, the brand was featured on American fashion magazine Vogue.com. This helped them reach more audiences. But what made them stand out is their business model. They launched an innovative initiative named ‘Home Try-On Program’ where customers could select five frames from the website just at $95 to try on at home for a free five-day trial. The users could also upload pictures on the app and digitally test on frames. It was such a hit that within 48 hours of Vogue publication that WarbyParker.com had to temporarily suspend the ‘Home Try-On Program’ due to an overwhelming volume of orders. Even after the stock had sold out, customers were still placing order which led. to a 20,000-person waitlist. As a result, Warby Parker was able to surpass its first-year sales targets in just three weeks.
One more unique idea was the launch of ‘Buy a Pair, Give a Pair’ program in 2010. Estimates suggest that 1 billion people worldwide require glasses, but they do not have access to them. To deal with this issue, Warby Parker makes sure that one pair of glasses is given out to a person in need for every pair that is purchased.
The road to success
When Warby Parker first launched its business 13 years ago, e-commerce was still at a nascent stage, and their strategies were ground-breaking. Warby Parker was able to offer stylish spectacles to the public for less than $100 per frame by eliminating the expense of physical locations (though the firm does have a few stores strategically located). This allowed the brand to compete with huge manufacturers like Luxottica.
In May 2011, the firm had 60 workers and had shipped over 100,000 pairs of glasses. By 2015, the firm was valued at $1.2 billion. The next year, Warby Parker revealed their plans to establish an optical lab in Rockland County, New York, where they would be able to manufacture eyeglasses on-site. In the US and Canada, Warby Parker presently runs over 160 stores.