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BURLINGTON, N.J.—Working with MyEyeStore to develop an online store, Robert Levy, OD, owner of Drs. Eyecare Center in Burlington, N.J. has seen the most success in his online shop with contact lenses, since this 22-year-old practice activated it over a year ago.

“A ton of my patients are utilizing it,” Levy told VM. “They’d say they wanted to get their contact lenses online from someone like 1-800 CONTACTS, and I’d say, ‘Why don’t you get them from us? Now, if you have a problem with anything, you can deal with us directly.’”

The convenience of online ordering benefits both doctor and patient; according to Levy, his e-comm customers have been almost 100 percent existing clients, and further, his staff are not tied up filling and maintaining contact lens orders.

“When you’re ordering contact lenses into your office, there’s a lot more work involved,” Levy said. “[When we’re offering contact lenses online], the patient can take it into their own hands. We just have to register them online, where they have access to their prescription.”

Drs. Eyecare Center does, however, continue to fill a majority of contact lens orders in the brick-and-mortar dispensary. “The majority of contact lens orders are still in house, but they’re being pushed to MyEyeStore,” Levy said. As these patients are migrated over to the online store, Levy intends to expand upon other categories MyEyeStore offers, such as vitamins. “The next big thing we want to push is the nutraceutical side. [The e-commerce store] is a good way to start marketing within to get people to start purchasing these things,” Levy said.

For Levy, like many ODs experimenting with e-commerce, convenience and competition validate moving forward with an e-comm platform. “It’s important, moving forward, for eyecare professionals to keep up with the times. Everything is changing, everything is online and you need to make a presence, be out there. Eyeglasses are next.”

- Catherine Wolinski