NEW YORK—After an extraordinary year of business challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Vision Monday will be publishing its signature Annual Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers Report in its upcoming June print/digital edition this year. The industry's leading news platform is kicking off its annual survey among regional and national retailers today for the signature report, which collates and presents sales and operations data for the calendar year ending Dec. 31, 2020. "We felt the survey this year had to be designed to reflect and account for the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis that began in March 2020 and continues to reverberate," said Marge Axelrad, VM's SVP and editorial director. "We readily acknowledge that last year was a year like no other across the business community, including optical retail, and as a result we have modified many of the questions to help us—and the industry—get a better understanding of how the optical retail business fared in 2020 and where companies stand today."

Added Mark Tosh, VM's senior editor, "Given the complexity of operations in 2020, it’s critically important that we collect information directly from as many optical retailers as we can this year, as the task of developing VM estimates for companies and their business during the pandemic will be difficult. The revised survey provides numerous areas in which companies can reflect accurately the numbers of offices/stores that were open during various periods of the year. We have modified some questions and added new ones. We believe that this will provide a truer picture of the optical business overall last year, which is important for those companies who rely on and mine the VM Top 50 report as they create a strategy for future years."

Past Top 50 Retailer companies and other retail and professional practice groups around the U.S. are invited to take part in the survey. A link to the survey is posted HERE. All survey forms must be submitted no later than Wed., May 19 to be considered for the Special Report.