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One of the greatest advantages of being registered on Dr. Contact Lens is that you can provide your customers with a variety of shipping options to help increase your sales and loyalty.
Dr. Contact Lens is a platform and marketplace for practices to create an efficient ship to home system. Shipping orders saves you 325+ hours of staff time for every 1,000 orders. It also sends a very clear message to your patients: We offer convenience.
In small business, it is easy to get caught up in the cents and dollars of cost. When shipping gives you the ability to scale and grow in volume, the benefits outweighs this cost. Dr. Contact Lens gives you the tools to sell to more, making shipping costs a worthwhile expenditure.
We have put together a run-down of the shipping strategies and cost analysis to keep your customers coming back and building your revenue.
Shipping costs & options
What does a consumer want when they shop on an e-commerce site? You guessed it, free shipping. Online stores offering free shipping will widely see more orders. Aside from allowing customers to track their orders, we offer fast, premium shipping options that enable you to improve the customer experience by communicating a clear delivery day. So what does it cost the average practice to ship all their orders home? Let's take a look at a typical practice.
The average practice does 500 orders a year
On average, about 15% of these orders won't qualify for free shipping from the distribution center. So what does that cost you? At $5.99/order it will be roughly $479.20 for an entire year's worth of contact lens orders to be direct shipped to your patients.
One-Day & Two-day Delivery – About 20% of Dr. Contact Lens customers select premium shipping options. Why? Because it is offered. Contact lens patients often order at the last minute and are need a quick and easy to way to get their next supply. When you offer this option to them, you become their hero. Premium shipping options are not free and can help build revenue further.
Staff time – We have tracked the steps it takes to order and dispense contacts from start to finish - and it is 28, or 15+ minutes or more per patient. Saving this cost by shipping everything home will allow you to utilize your staff time to better serve your patients, and make more sales. Dwindling profits in ordering time is a thing of the past.
Scaling with technology
Shipping direct to your patients with Dr. Contact Lens will bring you more future business. Our program will auto-text and email patients when they are due to re-order. Your patient's data is auto-loaded and saved, so they can order in one easy click.
Wonder why your patients place one order from you, but re-order elsewhere?
Barriers to re-ordering:
Most orders online happen at night – just like you, most consumers are shopping when they are done with work. The most common ordering times are between 5-9 pm.
Commercials – most contact lens commercials play in the evening and on weekends - while your office is closed. That is when your patient is reminded to re-order, and without your convenient ordering app, they may be swayed to go elsewhere.
Calling isn't as popular – we have all seen the world change. In the new age of business, it is essential to offer easy ordering options online.
Price Illusion - many consumers have the perception that ordering online is "better" or will offer them a better deal. By offering them a price competitive product with free shipping that is easier to use than any other site out there - you finally have the tool you need to win that sale.
Closing thoughts
As a contact lens re-seller, you can only compete so much on price. Offering concierge services can help you stand out from your competition. While other websites still require the 12 step process of data entry from your patients, you get to offer the one thing they never can - and easy one click to order solution with shipping options. Offer convenience and watch your practice grow. Don't delay your online sales, your future self will thank you!
"The software allows the patient to directly order contact lenses and frees up valuable staff time and labor. Dr. contact lens also messages patients directly when they are due to order additional lenses. Best of all, patients are offered the absolute best price and deters the patient from internet shopping. It allows us to sell to patients when we are not open, after hours, or in the event of closure. It is a great patient retention tool."
"DCL was easy to implement and seamless. Staff training was comprehensive and allowed us to start using it right away. Patients have accepted it well, and it's always fun to see new orders come through from patients who might not have purchased in the office!"
"Dr. Contact Lens has been a game changer for our practices. We used to track our patients through an excel spreadsheet and now we can see and do everything through Dr. Contact Lens. Patients are loving it and staff are loving it! It has been a win-win."
"Patients are more prompt with ordering contacts from us or coming in when they’re due for an exam because DCL reminds them when it’s coming up. My staff loves it because it’s a much more streamlined way to order and ship contacts to patients and because response time is amazing in the new live chat feature whenever they do have a question."
"We finally have a solution for online ordering of contacts that both my patients and staff love!"
"I am so happy to be a part of this company. This system is very efficient, fast and easy to work with. Patients are able to order their contact lenses by the click of a button. The best part is that we can give them their rebates without any hassle. "
"What an amazing company! Dr. Contact Lens has helped us retain those patients who simply want to order online. I only wish I had them sooner!"
"It really bothers me that the eyecare industry is slow to adopt e-commerce. Patients have been screaming at ECPs to buy contacts from us online for a decade. Finally, an OD friendly company made this possible. Thank you Dr. Contact lens!"
"I love Dr. Contact Lens because it impresses my patients as a cutting-edge solution to ordering contacts. We save an extraordinary amount of time every month because we don’t have to place contact lens orders and waste time with data entry. Our patients prefer the convenience, and I’m happy to give it to them - all while supporting my contact lens business!"
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"My patients love the convenience of Dr. Contact Lens, and my team loves the time it saves them. Because it is fully integrated with our EHR, it's easy to use for both the office and the patient. I'd highly recommend DCL!"
"It's never been easier to compete with giant online retailers. I'm ecstatic to have implemented Dr. Contact Lens & keep my contact lens sales in house. Thank you DCL!"
"Dr. Contact Lens has completely transformed contact ordering in my office. Before DCL, even with our other "direct-to-patient" software, contact lens ordering was still such a time consuming area of my practice. I can't get over the ultra sleek portal patients get access to in order to buy their contacts with DCL and how much time is saved! The marketing software/dashboard is everything I needed to boost my practice revenue, capture opportunities we were previously missing, and free up staff time"
"Dr. Contact Lens has been great for our practice. Patients appreciate the easy access to their prescription, and the 1-click ordering has increased our capture rate for sure! If our office has to close again due to the coronavirus, we can be sure that our contact lens sales will continue to grow!"
"We are a busy office and contact lenses have always been our bottleneck. We needed a new way for our patients to order from us to keep them from going online. Dr. Contact Lens is exactly this"
"I always prided myself on keeping my practice up to date and growing into the future. With Dr. Contact Lens we have done just that and streamlined a very old process. My patients love being able to order their contacts in one click, delivered directly to their home."
"Incorporating Dr. Contact Lens into my practice has helped me in many ways. It has kept more patients in house for purchases and it has other features that are great. It frees up time my staff so we can spend more getting patients booked for exams. It is more convenient for the patient as well, in case they want to order contacts at 1 in the morning, and it keeps track of expiring prescriptions, alerting both the patient and the office that it is time for the patient’s annual exam. It complies with giving the patient their prescription for contact lenses. It keeps pace with the pricing on 1800 so I can inform the patient without hesitation that we are priced competitively and they do not need to price shop online. It makes the patient feel that we are modern and up to date with technology."
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"I love technology, it has streamlined my practice so much. We work less, make more AND our patients are floored at our efficiency & services. We love making our patients & staff happy. Nothing does that better than cutting edge technology like Dr. Contact Lens!"
"Before Dr. Contact Lens we were always on the defense when it came to patients ordering contacts. We had no easy way to follow up with them & ordering the old way wasted so much time. Now we have a tech savvy way to compete in the growing online market, keep our practices thriving & our patients ordering from us!"
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How ship to home will help you scale
One of the greatest advantages of being registered on Dr. Contact Lens is that you can provide your customers with a variety of shipping options to help increase your sales and loyalty.
Dr. Contact Lens is a platform and marketplace for practices to create an efficient ship to home system. Shipping orders saves you 325+ hours of staff time for every 1,000 orders. It also sends a very clear message to your patients: We offer convenience.
In small business, it is easy to get caught up in the cents and dollars of cost. When shipping gives you the ability to scale and grow in volume, the benefits outweighs this cost. Dr. Contact Lens gives you the tools to sell to more, making shipping costs a worthwhile expenditure.
We have put together a run-down of the shipping strategies and cost analysis to keep your customers coming back and building your revenue.
Shipping costs & options
What does a consumer want when they shop on an e-commerce site? You guessed it, free shipping. Online stores offering free shipping will widely see more orders. Aside from allowing customers to track their orders, we offer fast, premium shipping options that enable you to improve the customer experience by communicating a clear delivery day. So what does it cost the average practice to ship all their orders home? Let's take a look at a typical practice.
The average practice does 500 orders a year
On average, about 15% of these orders won't qualify for free shipping from the distribution center. So what does that cost you? At $5.99/order it will be roughly $479.20 for an entire year's worth of contact lens orders to be direct shipped to your patients.
One-Day & Two-day Delivery – About 20% of Dr. Contact Lens customers select premium shipping options. Why? Because it is offered. Contact lens patients often order at the last minute and are need a quick and easy to way to get their next supply. When you offer this option to them, you become their hero. Premium shipping options are not free and can help build revenue further.
Staff time – We have tracked the steps it takes to order and dispense contacts from start to finish - and it is 28, or 15+ minutes or more per patient. Saving this cost by shipping everything home will allow you to utilize your staff time to better serve your patients, and make more sales. Dwindling profits in ordering time is a thing of the past.
Scaling with technology
Shipping direct to your patients with Dr. Contact Lens will bring you more future business. Our program will auto-text and email patients when they are due to re-order. Your patient's data is auto-loaded and saved, so they can order in one easy click.
Wonder why your patients place one order from you, but re-order elsewhere?
Barriers to re-ordering:
Most orders online happen at night – just like you, most consumers are shopping when they are done with work. The most common ordering times are between 5-9 pm.
Commercials – most contact lens commercials play in the evening and on weekends - while your office is closed. That is when your patient is reminded to re-order, and without your convenient ordering app, they may be swayed to go elsewhere.
Calling isn't as popular – we have all seen the world change. In the new age of business, it is essential to offer easy ordering options online.
Price Illusion - many consumers have the perception that ordering online is "better" or will offer them a better deal. By offering them a price competitive product with free shipping that is easier to use than any other site out there - you finally have the tool you need to win that sale.
Closing thoughts
As a contact lens re-seller, you can only compete so much on price. Offering concierge services can help you stand out from your competition. While other websites still require the 12 step process of data entry from your patients, you get to offer the one thing they never can - and easy one click to order solution with shipping options. Offer convenience and watch your practice grow. Don't delay your online sales, your future self will thank you!
Topics: optometry, shipping, contact lenses, optometrist, one click ordering, contacts in a click, concierge services