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Today, a third of India's population needs spectacles. The term "need" applies to people who have some kind of vision issue, but only about a quarter of them actually wear spectacles. When we sum up the number of people who choose to wear glasses as a fashion accessory, the figures are staggering. Customers in this group are interested in having several pairs of eyeglasses to go with a range of outfits. Every day in India, over 1.5 million (15 lacs) spectacles are sold. The industry is highly divided, with mom-and-pop shops dominating. With the launch of Lenskart, an entirely new industry was born.
Lenskart is a Faridabad, India-based optical prescription eyewear retail chain. Lenskart has over 70 locations in India as of September 2019. It's Delhi manufacturing facility produces 300,000 glasses every month. Lenskart also has a factory in Zhengzhou, China, that produces about half of the company's products.
This article will give you a complete insight on the Growth and Success Story of Lenskart. Also get a glance on Lenskart business model, funding, founders, how it started and more...
Lenskart - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Lenskart |
|---|---|
| Legal Name | Lenskart Solutions Private Limited |
| Headquarters | Faridabad, Delhi NCR, India |
| Industry | Prescription Eyewear, E-commerce |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Founders | Peyush Bansal, Sumeet Kapahi, Amit Chaudhary |
| CEO | Peyush Bansal |
| Area Served | Worldwide |
| Website | lenskart.com |
About Lenskart and How it Works?
Lenskart - Target Market Size
Lenskart - Name, Logo and Tagline
Lenskart - Founder and History
Lenskart - Mission and Vision
Lenskart - Product and Services
Lenskart - Business Model
Lenskart - Funding and Investors
Lenskart - Investments
Lenskart - Revenue and Growth
Lenskart - Competitors
Lenskart - Challenges Faced
Lenskart - Future Plans
Lenskart - FAQs
About Lenskart and How it Works?
Lenskart is a leading e-commerce company that creates an online optical store that sells a variety of eyewear. Customers will get the new eye-wear collections with free home delivery through the company's marketplace, which offers prescription eyewear, branded contact lenses, sunglasses, and accessories.
Lenskart operates on both an online and offline distribution platform. Customers can shop online at www.lenskart.com or in person at their distinctively built offline store. With the first-of-its-kind ‘Home eye checkup,' Lenskart is revolutionizing the eyewear industry.
Lenskart offers 5000 different models of eyewear and offers free home delivery with a 14-day replacement guarantee. Lenskart manufactures everything in the eyewear category, from sunglasses to reading glasses to contact lenses. Lenskart now owns both the online and offline eyewear markets, thanks to its chain of offline shops.
In this sector, there are three success factors: product, quality and portfolio, delivery time, and after-sales support. Their value proposition is straightforward: deliver a high-quality product at a reasonable price.
Vidhi Punamiya
Lenskart - Target Market Size
“We want to be the Maruti [Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest automobile manufacturer] of eyewear in India,” said Peyush Bansal, CEO of Lenskart.
Lenskart was established with the aim of providing ‘vision to India.' In line with this, they recently developed Lenskart Lite, a low-cost franchise model aimed at upcountry markets, especially tier 3 and 4 markets. The model, which is aimed at micro-entrepreneurs, needs a Rs 20 lakh investment. The format brings in about Rs 4-6 lakh per month in revenue. They already have a standard Lenskart franchise model for the tier-2 markets, with an investment criteria of Rs 35 lakh and estimated monthly revenues of Rs 8-10 lakh.
Varad Kitey
Lenskart - Name, Logo and Tagline
The company edited the three most widely recognized frame shapes – a square, a circle, and a triangle – to create slightly more abstract forms, and this is how the Lenskart logo was created.
Lenskart tagline is “Log on, Play on!”.
Lenskart - Founder and History
Peyush Bansal, Sumeet Kapahi and Amit Chaudhary are the founders of Lenskart.
Peyush Bansal is the CEO and founder of Valyoo Technologies, which is the parent company of Lenskart. In 2006, he graduated from McGill University in Canada with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering — IT, Control, and Automation. Peyush worked as a Program Manager for Microsoft for a year before returning to India to pursue his PG in Management at IIM, Bangalore.
During his time at IIM, he founded Valyoo Technologies, which introduced SearchMyCampus as the first business portal in 2007. It was a student classifieds platform that included books, part-time work, carpooling, and internship opportunities in addition to housing. His motto was to help students with any problem they may have.
Peyush decided to take SearchMyCampus into the e-commerce world because it was a huge success. While looking for opportunities, he came across the eyewear market, which was largely ignored by the major e-commerce players, such as Amazon and eBay. He created Flyrr.com, a website dedicated to the American eyewear industry.
Flyrr was gaining a lot of momentum, so he decided to try his luck in India and launched Lenskart in November 2010. They began by only selling contact lenses, but after a few months, they added eyeglasses. Finally, in March 2011, they expanded their portfolio to include sunglasses, putting them in the fashion accessory category.
Manav Makhija
Lenskart - Mission and Vision
Lenskart's mission statement says, "Our mission is to give India a vision," as the world's fastest-growing eyewear company and largest presence online. Lenskart sells prescription eyewear, branded contact lenses, and sunglasses, all of which are personalized to the customer's vision.
Lenskart - Product and Services
Lenskart has over 5000 frames and glasses to choose from, as well as over 45 different types of high-quality lenses. It's product offerings range from -
- Eyeglasses
- Premium Eyeglasses
- Sunglasses
- Shape - Wayfarer, Oval, Rounders, Cat Eye
- Size- Small, Medium and Large
- Brands - Bausch and Lomb, Johnson & Johnson, Alcon
- Color Contact Lenses, and many more.
Lenskart - Business Model
Lenskart operates on an inventory-driven business model with a B2C concept, sourcing equally from India and China. Its in-house stylists and designers keep up with the latest eyewear trends. The manufacturers are then given these designs. By controlling the entire supply chain, the company is able to keep costs down.
Lenskart have also ventured into offline stores via the franchisee model to meet the masses. It has more than 50 stores in 30 cities to reach 50 by the end of the year. Lenskart spread out its scope across metro and non-metro areas to achieve a good balance.
Lenskart currently serve 4000 people a day and plan to increase that number to 200,000 in the coming years. It has a team of nearly 1000 people to assist with this endeavor, which works across verticals such as manufacturing, eye technicians, customer care, technology, and logistics, and will continue to develop as the company grows.
Avantika Bhardwaj
Lenskart - Funding and Investors
Lenskart's recent funding round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund for $275 Million in its series G round on December 20, 2019.
The funding and investor details of Lenskart is as follows-
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 20, 2019 | Series G | $275M | SoftBank Vision Fund |
| Sep 16, 2019 | Series F | $55M | Kedaara Capital |
| Aug 7, 2018 | Secondary Market | - | Epiq Capital |
| Jan 9, 2017 | Secondary Market | ₹240M | Unilazer Ventures |
| Sep 6, 2016 | Series E | ₹2B | PremjiInvest |
| May 4, 2016 | Series D | $60.1M | - |
| Jan 2, 2015 | Series C | $21.9M | TPG, TR Capital |
| Dec 1, 2012 | Series B | $10M | - |
| Oct 1, 2011 | Series A | $4M | Chiratae Ventures |
Lenskart - Investments
| Date | Organization Name | Round | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 13, 2020 | Tango Eye | Seed Round | $500K |
| May 7, 2018 | ThinOptics | Venture Round | $500K |
| Nov 11, 2017 | 6over6 | Series A | $11M |
| Sep 23, 2017 | Ditto | Ditto | $1M |
Ashwini
Lenskart - Revenue and Growth
- Lenskart's revenue grew 56% to INR 485.5 Cr in FY19 compared to INR 310.9 Cr in FY18
- In a year, the Lenskart's employee compensation costs more than doubled, from INR 83.3 Cr to INR 167.4 Cr.
- Its advertisement costs increased by 71% in FY2020, from INR 64.5 crore to INR 111 crore.
- Lenskart's spending on commission paid to other selling agents increased by 248.2 percent, or 3.4x, from INR 56.4 Cr in FY2019 to INR 196.4 Cr in FY2020.
- It received INR 473.7 crore from India in FY2019, with the remaining INR 50 lakh coming from the US and Singapore markets.
- It's worth noting that, in FY2019, Lenskart Solutions only had two stores in Singapore, but it now expects to lead the market by the end of 2021 and gain around $30 million (INR 217 crore) in revenue.
Vidhi Punamiya
Lenskart - Competitors
Lenskart is up against both offline and online competitors. GKB Opticals, Coolwinks, Specsmakers, Deals4Opticals, Lensbazaar, Vision Express, and Titan Eyeplus are some of its key competitors.
Vidhi PunamiyaLenskart - Challenges Faced
The most difficult task Lenskart faced was persuading consumers to use the online store as a substitute for traditional shopping. The business needed to shift people's preconceived notions about eyewear and instill trust in them that they offer high-quality goods at lower prices than their brick-and-mortar competitors.
Lenskart's offline shops, desktop platforms, and smartphone apps all performed admirably. However, as opposed to their other sites, the mobile website converted the fewest visitors into customers. As a result, the client used that touchpoint to guide consumers to download their mobile apps as a stopgap solution before they could devote the resources needed to fully redesign the website.
Rishabh Rathi
Lenskart - Future Plans
Lenskart India's vision, "Vision to India," aims to reach the masses by developing a low-cost franchise model. Lenskart Lite is a model that will help them introduce the framework in Tier 3 and 4 cities, as well as expand their presence in Tier 2 cities. It also introduced regular contact lenses that can be quickly discarded. Lenskart's goal is to provide affordable and simple eyewear solutions with the aid of their Aqualens product. It would be extremely affordable to the daily masses who want both trend and cost at just Rs.40 per day.
The main aim of Lenskart India is to close the distance between selected and unselected lenses, and the company expects to open more than 500 stores in the next two years. It aims to have 2,000 stores open by the end of the next five years.
Lenskart - FAQs
What does Lenskart do?
Lenskart is a leading e-commerce company that creates an online optical store that sells a variety of eyewear. Customers will get the new eye-wear collections with free home delivery through the company's marketplace, which offers prescription eyewear, branded contact lenses, sunglasses, and accessories.
Who founded Lenskart?
Peyush Bansal founded Lenskart.
What companies do Lenskart compete with?
Lenskart is up against both offline and online competitors. GKB Opticals, Coolwinks, Specsmakers, Deals4Opticals, Lensbazaar, Vision Express, and Titan Eyeplus are some of its key competitors.
Author: Sarika Anand
Source : https://startuptalky.com/lenskart-success-story/
Date : 2021-05-04T15:24:54.000Z