The retail optical market will return to growth in 2010 after a particularly difficult year. This is the conclusion of a new report on the sector by the long-established retail market research evaluator Mintel.

In Optical Goods and Eyecare 2010, Mintel predicts:

• ‘modest growth’ to return this year
• sales to increase by 19% during 2010-2014
• the value of the market to rise to £3.2bn by 2014 from £2.65bn in 2009 and suppliers will work more closely with retailers, offering extra support through training schemes.

In future Mintel believes that opticians will need to find even more ways of adding value within the mix of goods and services they offer, ‘or else face a squeeze on margins’. This, the report suggests, will include adding more elements to the eye examination in order to justify the charges.

Although independents and small chains still make up 41% of the overall share in sales of optical goods today, Specsavers now has 23%, followed by Vision Express 11%.

A survey of 680 adults in December for the report found that one-in-three purchases of optical goods had gone to Specsavers in the previous 12 months, with independents getting 26%, Boots Opticians 7%, and Vision Express and D&A tied on 5% each.

The report states that spectacles take 63% of consumer spending within the sector, although spending on spectacles fell 4.6% in 2009. And it says there is a growing enthusiasm for contact lenses, especially in the 25-34 age group, and the numbers in this age group will grow by around 12% in the five years to 2014. One element of marketing, the internet, is here to stay, judging from a long-term Mintel survey of lifestyle trends of 25,000 adults contained in the report – back in 2004, 29% of us viewed the internet every day, however by 2009 this figure had shot up to 52%.

In a survey especially commissioned for Optical Goods and Eyecare 2010 of 1,011 adults, 67% said they had had an eye examination in the last two years, 14% 2-5 years ago, 10% more than five years ago, and 9% have never had an eye examination.

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