Better engagement with customers and domestic manufacturing of lenses and frames have enabled eyewear brand Lenskart to trim its losses by 12% to Rs 100 crore in FY17 from Rs 113 crore in the previous financial year. Peeyush Bansal, founder and CEO of Lenskart, told FE that the company clocked a total revenue of Rs 290 crore in FY17, which is almost a three-fold rise from Rs 100 crore in FY16. He, however, added that the company will seek to maintain its advertising and marketing expenses stubbornly around Rs 70 crore, as witnessed last fiscal. According to RoC filing by Lenskart Solutions in FY16, the company reported a 78% rise in total losses to Rs 113 crore from Rs 63.5 crore in the previous year. Meanwhile, revenue jumped 64% to Rs 100 crore from Rs 61 crore in FY15.
During FY17-18, the company has increased the total number of orders to 2.8 lakh units monthly. Bansal pegged the average ticket value for a pair of spectacles at Rs 2,000-2,500. The company clocks a return rate of 6-7% and it takes a hit as all spectacles are fitted uniquely for every user.
Additional services such as 3-D trials, spectacles-power check and eye check have helped the company clock better engagement and grow its customer base. On ground, Lenskart has 200 opticians for its home services, such as eye check-up, for which it charges Rs 100 per visit and has reached 1 million customers till date. “Lenskart monetises home business through sale of eyewear at customer house,” Bansal added. The service is currently available in the top six cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. In the next phase of expansion, Lenskart will focus at increasing revenue share of home services to 10% from 5% and expand to 7 more cities — Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Lucknow, Coimbatore and Ahmedabad by the end of October.
Like most fashion and accessories brands, Lenskart too operates omnichannel via offline stores, in addition to its web platform — Lenskart.com — with both contributing equally to the revenue pie. Currently, Lenskart runs 350 physical stores across 80 cities and will be adding another 150 by March 2018 in the existing markets. Same sales growth was pegged at 30% in FY17. All of Lenskart’s offline stores are operating under the franchisee model where the company has to shell out 30% as margin for the franchisee. In January, the company had raised Rs 24 crore from Unilazer Venture and has about $130 million in total funding. “The home programme has taken a lot of our investment and this is one of the services which we are looking at scaling now,” Bansal added.
Lenskart imports frames from countries like China, Korea and Italy and manufactures lenses and assembles them in its facility at Okhla, Delhi. Bansal shared that the company will be shifting its manufacturing unit to Manesar, Haryana and is investing Rs 60 crore in the new facility.
“Assembly in India is bringing in more efficiency and improves the bottomline for us. We started manufacturing in lenses last year and will start manufacturing frames this year,” Bansal added. Private labels contribute as much as 75% of Lenskart’s total business and fetch margins up to 70-80%.
