Full Transcript
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIiLO5wiPvQ
[00:00] So, picture this.
[00:02] So, picture this.
[00:02] You just walked into your local sunglass hut to grab a new pair of shades.
[00:06] First, you try on the Ray-B bands.
[00:08] Too classic.
[00:08] Then you try the Oakleys.
[00:11] Too sporty.
[00:11] You pick up a Prada pair and think, "Yeah, these are it."
[00:16] You walk to the register, tap your card, and walk out feeling great.
[00:18] But here's what actually just happened.
[00:21] The store you walked into, the three brands you tried on, the lenses in those frames, they were all the same company.
[00:27] You never actually had a choice.
[00:30] This is episode 44 of Chasing Beauty, and today we're looking at the single company that owns your eyes.
[00:38] That company is called Eselor Luxotica, and the scale of what they control is genuinely hard to believe.
[00:45] They own the brands, Rayban, Oakley, Oliver Peoples.
[00:48] They make the lenses.
[00:51] Esseler, Varilux, Transitions.
[00:54] They own the retail, Lens Crafters, Sunglass Hut, Glasses.com, and they own the insurance IMED, the second largest
[01:01] the insurance IMED, the second largest vision plan in the United States.
[01:04] vision plan in the United States.
[01:06] Leonardo Delveio grew up an orphan in Milan.
[01:09] He left the orphanage at 14 and started working full-time as an apprentice in a tool and die shop with the job of cutting metal.
[01:16] In 1961, he opened a small molding shop in Agordo, a tiny town in the Italian Dolommites.
[01:22] They made eyeglass parts, hinges, noses, pads for other companies.
[01:27] By the late60s, he was making complete frames.
[01:30] By the8s, his company Luxotica was licensing luxury brands.
[01:35] In the '90s, they started buying up retail chains.
[01:37] The strategy was vertical integration taken to its logical extreme.
[01:42] If you make the frames and own the store, you control the price.
[01:46] If you own the insurance plan too, you completely control the customer.
[01:49] Because for millions of people, buying a pair of glasses does not start with the brand.
[01:55] It starts with the question, what does my vision plan cover?
[01:59] And if your plan is IMED, that means you go to an in-et network doctor.
[02:01] You get sent to an in-et
[02:03] network doctor.
[02:03] You get sent to an in-et network retailer.
[02:05] You pick from in network frames.
[02:09] You add lenses made by the same company.
[02:11] And by the time you walk out, every step of the transaction has passed through the same machine.
[02:15] Esselor Luxotica designed your maze.
[02:18] A pair of acetate frames costs roughly $15 to $30 to manufacture.
[02:24] On the wall at Sunglass Hut, they're 300.
[02:27] In the Chanel section, there's 600.
[02:29] That margin is only possible when one company has complete control.
[02:34] There's no independent retailer undercutting because the independent retailers can't get the brands.
[02:40] The brands hand their name over to Essor Lotica and collect a royalty 6 to 13% on a $600 pair.
[02:48] Maybe $20 went to the frames.
[02:51] Chanel got 60.
[02:53] The rest went to the company whose name you've never heard