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Tracking Contact Lens Fittings – A Global Vision

With the acquisition of the GfK NOP Opticians Monitor in March 2009, GfK Retail and Technology expanded the audit of the contact lens market to cover Fittings in addition to Sales. Now entering the second year in the UK market, the insights gained from integrating the findings from these two stages are proving invaluable to the industry. We spoke with David Lewis, GfK Senior Account Manager for the UK Optics Division to find out more…

Tell us more about the Fitting Audit

"As part of the process in purchasing contact lenses, patients undergo an assessment to ensure their suitability. The GfK Fitting Audit measures the number of successful Contact Lens fittings. The major development from the move to GfK RT has been the employment of a Retail Audit methodology in data collection. Extracting information on Fittings primarily from the patient records has proven successful in providing robust, complete and accurate information to the industry."

How does this provide insight on sales?

"In principle the GfK Fitting Audit measures each and every time the Optometrist has an opportunity to influence their patients’ sales behaviour. In isolation the Fitting information can quantify how successfully strategies are being employed – for instance who is securing the most first fittings? Such findings can give an insight as to where sales are currently heading – an over-weighted fitting share has the potential to lead to a future growth in sales.

Furthermore, the fitting information can be integrated with sales to give a greater understanding on current trends. Not only can we identify key market trends but we can also provide insight on what type of wearer has driven this, which competitor this has directly impacted (Previous Lens information), the channel this has occurred in, whether it was influenced by price and how old or which gender the patients driving this were."

What does the future for the Fitting audit hold?

"As the case with the sales data clients will benefit from the development of the GfK Fitting Audit into a truly global product. 2010 will see the launch of the fitting audit in the US, Italy and Germany. Furthermore the upcoming migration to GfK StarTrack will further enhance the global capabilities of this product."