NEW YORK—When comparing optical sales during the 20th week of 2021 (May 10-16) with the same time period in 2020, gross revenue reported by ECP locations this year shows substantial improvement over last year when we were in the midst of pandemic shutdowns. Gross revenue for the 20th week of 2021 also reached a higher level than that generated by optical sales during the same time period two years ago in 2019. Over the course of last week (May 10-16), optical sales in all five business metrics categories being tracked continued the declines that they have been experiencing for over one month.

When comparing last week’s optical sales with those of the previous week, changes in the index rate ranged from flat for contact lens sales to -3 index points for lens pairs.

For the past four weeks, optical sales have been decreasing (except contact lenses). Since the beginning of the last four-week period, declines in optical sales ranged from only -2 index points for exams/refractions to -7 index points for lens pairs. Contact lenses, which often trend in inverse proportion to all other categories, increased in sales by 3 index points over the past four weeks, yet they remain at the lowest index level among all four categories being tracked.

When Jobson Optical Research launched this tracker in 2020, the goal was to monitor the optical industry through the pandemic. While the road ahead is still unknown, it appears that we, as a nation, are moving forward.

Today’s revamped tracker compares more than just week to week. The tracker now measures sales trends comparing pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, and post-pandemic.

Jobson Optical Research selected 1,500 optical locations that have been operating and reporting their sales to its partners, GPN/EDGEPro 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 Weekly Practice Performance Tracker