Enhance your dispensary offerings

The holiday season can be a slow time for many practices. Yet, there is a way to boost cash flow, especially this time of year.

The answer is: optical accessories. Marketing the right accessories and getting a little creative with displays is a sure way to boost profit in your office.

If you keep in mind that your office is able to keep all the overhead costs covered with the usual day-to-day office visits and sales, then selling anything above and beyond the norm can be thought of as pure profit.

Practically anyone aged more than 40 years needs assistance to see up close. Today's readers are affordable, with so many functional and fun styles from which to choose. Consider reader collections (Scojo New York) whose compact, lightweight, and stylish readers are easy to sell. They even have a sun reader collection.

Another collection (Cinzia) has retro designs in all price ranges along with a sun collection, too.

Men will appreciate one collection of readers (Clic Readers, Ron's Optical) that click open at the bridge for easy on-off, using a magnet to click back in place. People are fascinated to see these readers pop open and close with a simple magnetic click.

Inviting reader displays are easy to create. How about a menu, wine glass, and a pair of readers? Or try a road map, match box car, and pair of sunreaders.

Eyewear retainers

Anyone who has lost a pair of glasses overboard or didn't have his or her reading glasses when the need presented itself are sure to want some form of eyewear retainer.

One company (Hilco) has an offering of eyewear retainers made of beads and silver chain, or cords with attractive pendants designed to hang readers by sliding one temple through.

Another line of eyewear retainers (Corinne McCormack) really looks like jewelry, designed using classy chains and eyeglass-catching pendants dangling on the bottom.

For active patients, consider stocking cords (Croakies) designed with an array of clasps to fit over different temple tip-end sizes. Many are woven in attractive designs and made of the same cord as mountain-climbing rope.

A clever table-top display designed for easy viewing takes up a small footprint of office space. An easy display that conveys the need for retainers is a small fish bowl filled with water, pebbles, and a pair of eyeglasses on the bottom.