Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Eyelation CEO Brad Kirschner (Part 2)

Brad Kirschner: One of the interesting things that has happened as well is, when I started, we spent two years developing the eyewear kiosk. We went out to the market with it. Almost right away, people said, “This is really cool. Can you do this for safety shoes?”

Sramana Mitra: That’s a completely different business.

Brad Kirschner: I had spent a number of years in factories fitting people with eyewear the old way before I started this company. One thing I noticed when I did that was that there was some guy like me who was also fitting shoes.

Even though shoes and eyeglasses don’t go together in retail, they’re two things that go together very well in factories. They’re things that people get one or two per year, and every one needs a different one. The companies have the same problem in getting their safety products for shoes to their employees as they do for eyewear.

When I started, they were asking me about this. We spent some time getting it out to market and building our network for eyewear. In the last year, we’ve added a safety shoe program as well. We’ve got 20 to 30 customers now who are buying safety shoes as well as eyewear from us.

Anything that’s in this benefit-managed space where companies want a little bit more control over what people are getting and it’s a little bit geared for individuals is something we’re looking to expanding into.

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the logistics of this. Where is the merchandise stored? How big a kiosk do you need to be able to store all this stuff?

Brad Kirschner: Don’t think of a vending machine. It’s really more like an ATM. People walk up to it and they place their order and then it arrives within a day or two. We ship it to them.

After we’ve measured them and fit them, we then ship it to them. Some companies will have it shipped to the company. Some companies will have it shipped to people’s houses. We have flexibility around that. 

Sramana Mitra: Where is the product being handled?

Brad Kirschner: We’re based out of Chicago. All of the products are shipping out of our office.

Sramana Mitra: Direct to consumer?

Brad Kirschner: Yes, or to the factories. 

Sramana Mitra: So the kiosk is for measuring and taking orders.

Brad Kirschner: Exactly.

Sramana Mitra: What measurements do you need?

Brad Kirschner: It doesn’t do the eye exam part. You still go to a doctor to get your prescription, but your doctor doesn’t probably have safety glasses that your company will pay for. What happens is, they bring the prescription from their doctor to the kiosk.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Eyelation CEO Brad Kirschner
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