Glasses Gripper is launching its first, innovative product: a fixture with a non-slip, puncture-resistant surface that allows opticians to do their jobs faster, safer, and more profitably. The product was created by Monica Miller, a former optician with 30 years of experience, who had the desire to stop injuring her hands or damaging glasses while tightening or loosening eyewear screws with sharp tools.Â
Wholesale optical labs spend a lot of time considering how to save money. Slim profit margins make spoilage remakes costly, which reduces your ROI. Using Glasses Grippers to insert lenses or tighten screws will increase your bottom line by greatly reducing spoilage. For labs averaging 200 jobs per day (400 lenses), their total spoilage rate, including accidental scratches is .04%. (multiply by .004) That equates into 1.6 ruined lenses a day. At an average of $30 a lens, that equals $48 a day and $12,480 a year!
Additionally, the average time a doctor’s office must wait for a lens you accidentally ruin is 4.4 days. When you use a Glasses Gripper for all your finishing work, you’ll increase customer satisfaction with increased speed of service.
For retail opticians, spoilage costs are even higher. The average time an optician spends working with a patient remeasuring and refitting a remake is at least half an hour. The estimated cost of her time added to the costs of the lab charge to remake a lens comes to an average of $72.50 per remake. Additionally, your patient will have to wait an average of 4.4 days to receive their remade glasses. When you use a Glasses Gripper for all your lens insertions, glasses adjustments, and repairs, you’ll be saving time and money.
Her first prototype was a piece of fender protector glued to an angle iron and attached to the edge of a bench. Searching for a better grip led her to upholstery shops to test various materials. She found what worked best was a textured neoprene. Glasses no longer slipped during lens insertion or adjustments. She drastically reduced damage to costly eyewear and eliminated painful stab wounds.
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After completing the Build Institute business planning education, she became one of five cohorts from among a highly competitive pool of applicants for gBETAs accelerator program for early startups. During this time Glasses Gripper prototypes were test marketed in seven opticals in northeast Indiana, where they are made exclusively today.
Read more about this product on TEF Magazine or visit their website.
