Having worked at Harrods and Selfridges as a qualified optician, Tej Johal created Fashion Eyewear Ltd to be one of the UK’s first online opticians – combining designer eyewear with the most advanced optical quality. Today, Fashion Eyewear makes the process of ordering prescription glasses or sunglasses simple, quick and stress-free. Their in-house optical team create bespoke lenses which are made exclusively for every customer’s prescription and frame requirements.
Fashion Eyewear continuously looks to improve its business model, especially when it comes to its environmental impact; stocking frames from sustainable leaders such as Waterhaul, Stella McCartney and Zeal and offering a no-waste policy so all packaging and waste is recycled and reused in their offices. They have also deployed innovative digital tools to minimise ecommerce returns and help customers find the right product and right fit when shopping online.
Approximately half of all global emissions are created through the production and disposal of goods such as clothing, cars and other fashion products; and thousands of tonnes of unused and unloved eyewear are either going to landfill or sitting idle in desk drawers.
Looking for sustainable solutions to help reduce their impact on the planet, Fashion Eyewear’s ambition was to launch the UK’s first circular eyewear proposition.
“We recognised the surge in popularity of preloved products and wanted to build a unique eyewear proposition for our customers. The ambition was to launch the UK's first circular eyewear programme, offering our customers an omnichannel trade-in/buyback and recycling/reselling eyewear scheme to resonate with our customers and also target a new customer demographic.”
With the use of Tern software, Fashion Eyewear did just that. Downloading the Tern Trade-in App from the Shopify store, they were able to quickly set up their programme. Importantly, they wanted new customers to be able to trade in their old frames, regardless of where these were originally purchased. They saw that trade-in had the potential to help them acquire new customers as well as engage previous shoppers and at the same time supply them with preloved frames. They wanted to offer a service that felt effortless and gave customers (new and old) confidence in the process.
In January 2023, they launched The Fashion Eyewear Trade-in programme, the first of its kind in the UK, enabling customers to send in their old frames to be restored or recycled. In return, customers are given credit to spend on their next order, extending the life of unworn glasses and sunglasses and helping to reduce fashion waste by giving used frames a second life. Unlike other glasses recycling programmes in the market, that donate or repurpose frames, Fashion Eyewear wanted to refurbish and resell pre-loved frames. They weren’t totally convinced it would work and initially expected a glasses recovery rate of less than 50%.
“It has been incredibly straightforward to launch our trade-in scheme, the Tern team have been fantastic in supporting us to deliver a market-leading proposition for our customers.”
Impressively, 80% of the glasses received from the trade-in programme are resellable - and anything that isn’t gets recycled or is used for spare parts. Resale items are put through a thorough cleaning and refurbishment process and then relisted in the Preloved Frames section on the Fashion Eyewear website.
Launching circular retail by leveraging the Tern software has enabled Fashion Eyewear to grow its business in a more sustainable way; creating a new revenue stream through resale, reducing marketing spend and driving new customer acquisition. They’re also now top-ranking on Google’s coveted first page for both Trade-in and Preloved Glasses search terms.
“The customer appetite and demand for our preloved products has really surprised us. The proposition has resonated with our customers, and we have proven the profitability of the scheme.
In launching our trade-in/preloved scheme, we have unlocked a new revenue channel for the business.
Additionally, our content pages have quickly reached prime organic positioning for several key search terms, helping to drive a large volume of engaged traffic without having to put marketing budget on traffic acquisition.”
Tern is extremely proud to support Fashion Eyewear in creating an industry-leading, profitable and sustainable circular retail model. Their trade-in and resale programme is a brilliant example of how retailers can make a meaningful impact whilst continuing to grow their business - and there’s more to come!
“We are thrilled to announce that we're one of the 22 high street businesses to be awarded a ‘high streets beyond waste’ grant from ReLondon! We’ll be using it to introduce activities into the business that will reduce waste and help London on its journey to become a low-carbon city. The grant will be used to further support Fashion Eyewear’s circular eyewear proposition”
We look forward to continuing our partnership with Fashion Eyewear and seeing the continued success of their circular retail programmes, now a core part of their business growth strategy.
If you’re looking to drive revenue and build customer loyalty while making a meaningful impact, get in touch to find out how Tern can help grow your business.
