NEW YORK—With the conclusion of the year 2023, Jobson Optical Research takes a step back to have a look at the past through 5 years of the Jobson Index Tracker. The year-end average for gross revenue ended at an all-time high in 2023 at 115 index points, following the trend of a steady and consistent yearly increase from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, according to Jobson’s year-end review of 2023 Practice Performance Trackers. This gross revenue increase happened alongside a slight overall decrease from the index baseline in the other sales categories.

The discrepancy in gross revenue vs the other categories indicates higher pricing per-unit, which results in more gross revenue despite the slight decrease in sales volume. Exams/refractions ended the year at an index value of 97. The category has been following a slow trend upward throughout the years, but has not yet returned to the pre-pandemic baseline of 100.

Frames units and lens pairs both end the year at 99 index points. The trendlines for these two categories are nearly identical as they are complementary goods typically purchased together. Lastly, contact lenses is the only category that has been trending downward post-pandemic and has a 2023 year-end average of 91 index points.

Jobson Optical Research selected 1,500 optical locations that have been operating and reporting their sales to its partners, GPN 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 COVID-19 Performance Tracker

As 2023 comes to a close, here is a summary of how the index has moved over the last five years by category.