Online eyeglasses sales giant sells 60,000 pairs in 2nd quarter 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jun 14, 2010 –The Canada’s online optical sales giant Coastal Contacts Inc today announced today that in the not-so-far future, the sales of online eyeglasses will outnumber the sales of contatcs, in its financial results for the second fiscal quarter, period ended April 30, 2010. This is an exciting result in the time of economic downturn.
According to the report, sales of eyeglasses grew to $4.7 million (net of returns and cancellations) an increase of 136% over the same period in 2009. Sales in Canada grew 43% during the six months ended April 30, 2010. Sales in the United States grew 32% during the six months ended April 30, 2010 and 55% when excluding the effects of foreign exchange rate fluctuations.
Mr. Roger Hardy, Coastal’s President and CEO, commented, “Coastal continues to demonstrate organic growth in the contact lens category in key markets around the world, particularly in Canada and the United States. Our commitment to providing the highest level of customer service is resulting in a growing number of repeat orders and is increasing the life time value of our customer database. The eyeglasses category is experiencing rapid growth, again mainly in North America, and given the overall size of the global market, we believe has the potential to eventually become a larger business than Coastal’s contact lens business.
In approximately two years we have built a significant eyeglasses business that culminated in over 60,000 pairs of eyeglasses being shipped during the quarter and $4.7 million in sales, predominantly in North America. This quarter’s operating results are consistent with the financial model we used to establish our $20 million eyeglasses sales goal this year. We are significantly expanding the capacity of our North American eyeglasses facility to address consumer demand.”
Coastal noted the following operational highlights during the second fiscal quarter 2010:
– Coastal reported that the Ministry of Health in British Columbia
modernized the regulations regarding the ability of consumers to
purchase contact lenses and eyeglasses on the Internet, making vision
care products more affordable and accessible.
– Coastal secured a $5 million revolving line of credit from the Bank of
America, bringing the total cash accessible from existing credit
facilities to $8.5 million, none of which had been drawn at April 30,
2010.
Above results of sales by Coastal partially attribute to the deregulation of online optical sales by BC government which is the first regional government to announce the rules from government’s perspectives.