NEW YORK—Optical sales recovered last week, June 7-13, following the steep declines experienced during the Memorial Day holiday of the previous week (May 31-June 6), according to data from Jobson’s latest Practice Performance Tracker. Gross revenue recovered and surpassed the -17 index points it lost the previous week by adding 23 index points last week. Not only did gross revenue recover last week (Week 24), but it also surpassed the comparable weeks of both 2019 and 2020.

Last week, all categories of optical sales not only reversed the losses of the previous Memorial Day holiday week but also substantially surpassed the levels they were at the previous week prior to those declines. In addition to gross revenue’s rebound, exams/refractions also recovered and surpassed the -16 index points it lost the previous week by adding 23 index points last week. Frame units recovered and surpassed the -17 index points lost by adding 21 index points, lens pairs recovered and surpassed the -18 index points lost by adding 21 index points, and contact lenses recovered and surpassed the -8 index points lost by adding 15 index points.

While all optical sales categories bounced back last week (June 7-13) following the previous Memorial Day holiday week, optical sales in all service/product categories, except gross revenue, remained below the index level of an average week in 2019. Gross revenue was the outlier last week as the only category to exceed an average week in 2019 at a rate of 6 index points.

Jobson Optical Research selected 1,500 optical locations that have been operating and reporting their sales to its partners, GPN and ABB Analytics, since 2019. The index has been rebased to an average week in 2019. Going forward, this new index base will be used as an arbitrary benchmark and assigned a value of 100.

Click here to view the complete Jobson COVID-19 Performance Tracker