MULTIMEDIA: Data Top 50 Retailers Surpass $8 Billion in Sales for 2012 By John Sailer Monday, May 20, 2013 12:05 AM RELATED CONTENT Brick and Order Top 10, Mass Merchants’ Sales Up in 2012 Key Optical Players Ranked by U.S. Sales in 2012 Snapshots of Optical’s 10 Largest Retail Players Mass Merchants/Clubs Maintain Almost One-Third of Top 50 Sales By John Sailer: Senior Editor NEW YORK—As the economy continued its gradual recovery last year, the U.S. optical retailing sector also exhibited slow but steady growth in 2012, fueled in part by the performance of the country’s 50 largest eyewear/eyecare retailers. The Vision Council’s VisionWatch report dated December 2012 indicates a 5.8 percent increase in vision care products and services sold at U.S. optical retail locations in the U.S. from $28,624 million in 2011 to $30,287 million in 2012. Leading those sales were the county’s top 50 retailers, responsible for an aggregate $8,064.9 million portion (26.6 percent) of that total. With many of the Top U.S. optical retailers adding locations and reporting healthy sales increases for the calendar year 2012 and beyond, this upward sales trend promises to continue. These Top 50 eyewear/eyecare players operated an estimated 10,041 retail locations as of Dec. 31, 2012, with about half of those listed on the VM Top 50 list adding new units and approximately two-thirds reporting increased sales in 2012 as compared with 2011. ■ jsailer@jobson.com