Lenskart Business Model: First and The Only Brand to use Robotic Technique

Lenskart Business Model: First and The Only Brand to use Robotic Technique

Lenskart is an Indian online portal for eyewear, founded by Peyush Bansal in November 2010 in Delhi. The company's portfolio of products ranges from prescription glasses, contact lenses to sunglasses. Its business model is what makes the company different from others, as it bridges the gap between different touchpoints, i.e. it gives the customer an Omni Channel Experience where a customer can order either from the store or from an online medium.

Lenskart is one of the e-commerce companies that operate in both online and offline distribution channels. Customers can order their products over the online portal or from Lenskart's uniquely designed offline store. The company is revolutionizing the eyewear industry through first its kind “Home eye checkup”. Lenskart also becomes a unicorn company in the year 2019.

Lenskart is the fastest-growing retail chain with 500+ profitable stores across 120+ cities and 50 Lac happy customers across India. Valyoo Technologies is the parent company under which it is registered. Lenskart app is the No.1 shopping app for eyewear as it has the widest collection of specs, sunglasses, goggles, frames, anti-glare, contact lenses, reading glasses, computer glasses, try glasses at home, prescription sunglasses, and eye accessories.

Lenskart Physical Store Visit

A Brief History of Lenskart
The Business Model of Lenskart
The Omni Channel Method
Lenskart Funding
Growth Drivers for Lenskart
Features of Lenskart
Competitive Analysis of Lenskart
FAQs

Lenskart Startup Story - Leading e-commerce Portal for Eyewear
Lenskart is an optical prescription eyewear retail chain with over 70 locations in India. Know about Lenskart growth story, funding, business model & more.

A Brief History of Lenskart

The founder and CEO of Valyoo Technologies (parent company of Lenskart) is Peyush Bansal. He pursued his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering - IT, Control & Automation from McGill University, Canada in 2006. Before he returned to India to pursue PG in Management from IIM, Bangalore, Peyush worked as a Program Manager with Microsoft for a year.

 Peyush Bansal the Founder and CEO of Lenskart
Peyush Bansal the Founder and CEO of Lenskart

Peyush launched his company Valyoo Technologies with SearchMyCampus as the first business portal in 2007. It was a classified site for students that provided options for accommodation, books, part-time jobs, carpool facilities, and internship opportunities. When that became a big hit, Peyush wanted to explore the e-commerce world. While exploring opportunities, the eyewear segment caught his eye and inspired him to come up with his own.

This led to the creation of Flyrr.com, a website that focused on the eyewear market in the US. Flyrr went on to gain good traction and this prompted him to test the waters in the Indian markets and launch Lenskart in November 2010. Lenskart then started with just selling contact lenses and added eyeglasses a few months later continued by the sunglasses.


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The Business Model of Lenskart

Lenskart offers over 5000 frames and glasses and more than 45 different kinds of high-quality lenses. The company follows an inventory-led business model wherein equal sourcing is done from India and China. Lenskart has its own team of designers and stylists that keep a tab on the latest trends in the eyewear department, the designs made by the team are then passed down to the manufacturers.

In order to reach the masses, they have also ventured into offline stores through the franchises model. Lenskart currently has 500 stores across more than 66 cities, including in tier II and tier III locations such as Agartala, Tirupati, Siliguri, Raipur, Haridwar and Varanasi, among others. They have balanced the reach by spreading out across metro and non-metro locations and are currently serving more than 4000 people in a day and looking at scaling it up to 200,000 people in the coming years.

There are 4 success factors in this industry that are quality of the product, the product portfolio, the delivery time, and lastly the sales service. Lenskart has a good value proposition that provides high-quality products at an affordable price. They also have a team of 1000+ employees who operate on manufacturing, eye technicians, custom service, technology, and logistics which further expand as the growing demands.

Company Name Lenskart
Industry Prescription Eyewear, Opticians
Founded 2010
Founder and CEO Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi
Headquarters Faridabad, Delhi NCR, India
Employees 4000+ (2020)
Annual Revenue $132 Million
Products & Services Prescription glasses, Contact Lenses, Eyeglasses and Sunglasses

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The Omni Channel Method

Lenskart started off as an online business, but when they understood that the Indian customers prefer to touch and feel the product before buying a high involvement product, this is when they shifted to the Omni Strategy. As it was important for them to leverage technology to actively engage their customers and adapt to the ever-changing consumer expectations.

With this strategy, the company focuses on delivering the right product, at the right time and at the right place. For Lenskart, customer engagement is more important as they help their customers get a shopping experience tailored as per their preference. Lenskart is trying to keep itself close to the customers and increase trust by providing a value proposition.

The Lenskart Omnichannel Strategy
The Lenskart Omnichannel Strategy

Lenkart is known to give bundled offers like buying two at the cost of one or cross offers like giving the first frame for free, real-time offers, personalized recommendations, email coupons, etc. Lenskart has expanded to 80 cities which are based on the franchise business model in which 35% of all revenue is shared with the franchisee and an annual fee of 2, 00,000 lakhs.

Lenskart Funding

Lenskart has raised a total of $554.6 million in funding over 10 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 16, 2021, from a Secondary Market round. The company is funded by 15 investors - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Temasek Holdings, SoftBank Vision Fund, Kedaara, Chiratae Ventures, T&R, Unilazer, IFC, TPG, Adveq, IDG Ventures. Lenskart has four investments and their most recent investment was on 13th October 2020 when Tango Eye and Ditto valued at $500k each.

The total funding of Lenskart is $554.6 million which are:

  • October 2011 raised $4 million in series A.
  • December 2012 raised $10 million in series B.
  • January 2015 raised $21.9 million in series C.
  • May 2016 raised $60.1 million in series D.
  • September 2016 raised $2 billion in series E.
  • January 2017 raised $240 million in a Secondary Market round.
  • September 2019 raised $55 million in series F.
  • December 2019 raised $275 million in Series G.
  • May 2021 raised $95 million in the Secondary Market round.

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Growth Drivers for Lenskart

  • “The first frame is free” offer - where customers will pay for only the lens on their first purchase. A good strategy to attract first-time buyers.
  • “Try at home” – where customers can choose a maximum of 5 frames and try them at home before making a final purchase. This has led to more sampling by customers.
  • Eye checkups by optometrists at home across cities have been introduced.
  • They have been doing 1500 checkups a day and have a conversion of 50%.
  • Innovation use of technology – developed a 3D facial visualizer where customers can see how the frames will look on them.

Features of Lenskart

  • Infinite variations and model of Eyewear.
  • Find a frame that suits your style.
  • Latest collection with fashionable trends.
  • 3D Try On.
  • Replace Old Eyeglasses.
  • Book Eye checkup at your own home.
  • Shop from a range of 100% authentic brands.
  • Order online and pay cash on delivery.
  • Scan product barcodes with the camera.
  • Live chat with the customer support team.

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Competitive Analysis of Lenskart

Lenskart's competitors include both online and offline players. Even traditional retailers who specialize in eyewear are the competitors of Lenskart. Competition is clearly heating up in this space with players like GKB, Lawrence and Mayo, Titan Eye Plus, Bausch and Lomb, Vision express, Specsmakers, Coolwinks, Deals4Opticals. Some manufactures like Ray-Ban, Essilor have their own online stores.

Lenskart Competitors
Lenskart Competitors

Lenskart faces competition from e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm Mall, Snapdeal which sell eyewear and impact its business directly. With a market size of Rs. 18000-20000 crore, organized players account for barely 9-10% of the market. The brands compete with a vast variety of low-priced products available offline and online so the challenge is to steer customers away from local opticians and keep them loyal.

FAQs

What is Lenskart's business model?

Lenskart has a B2C business model which is highly sales-oriented. They sell their product directly to customers at an affordable price. They have a wide variety of frames within a price range of Rs.345 to Rs.30,000 and also the first frame you buy is absolutely free.

Is Lenskart a Chinese company?

No, Lenskart is not a Chinese company. Lenskart is an Indian retail chain for spectacles having factories in China as well which manufactures about 50% of the production.

Is Lenskart costly?

Lenskart's price ranges from Rs.345 to Rs.30,000. Also, one can find the best value on its online platform.

Why is Lenskart so cheap?

Since Lenskart is a B2C company, there are no intermediaries involved to eat their revenue.

How does Lenskart make money?

Since no intermediaries are involved between buyer and seller so whatever revenue generated comes directly to the company's account.

Why should we choose Lenskart?

Lenskart has over 5000 styles of eyewear, which is 5 times more than that any retailer in India. Also, they provide a seamless user experience to their customers. Their lenses are durable and long-lasting along with their funky to casual looks.    

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