Online sales are a very small (~25%) part of the eyewear market. No DTC brand (Warby Parker, Zenni, etc.) is anywhere close to the market dominance of EssilorLuxottica.

Relatively small, but their margins are way better. Of course they haven't overtaken Luxottica, but they are growing quick and are still businesses in the billions.

I think online eyewear sales and awareness have been spiking over the last 5 years, and they have serious product market fit. You tell anyone about the existence of online eyewear and the price and they are sold. Luxottica is winning based on market ignorance at the moment IMO, it's only a matter of time.

It's definitely not a duopoly and if it were it definitely wouldn't include Zenni. Here's one ranking of the top eyeglass retailers in 2015[0]. Another source says Zenni Optical had gross revenue of $214MM in 2018[1], so maybe they should be on that list but they'd be behind Warby Parker let alone some of the others.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/256664/sales-of-the-lead... [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/zenni-optical-cele...

I have two pairs of Warby Parker glasses, and I have to give them this: their in-store customer service is very good.

Online support is good as well. First pair I ordered from them had a defective coating after the first 6 months (it was 'splotchy', it looked like water dried on the lenses but it wouldn't come off'). They sent me a replacement pair for free.

The only downside I have with online glasses is you making adjustments to the fitting of the glasses. Your eye doctor will usually do this for you when you buy glasses for them, but online glasses require you to do it yourself or go into a store (if they have one). With that said, still not a big enough negative for me to go back to buying from my eye doctor.

Warby will reimburse $50 to go to an eye doctor for fitting. See "Fit" here: https://www.warbyparker.com/help. I admittedly haven't needed to do this so I'm not sure what the experience is like.

It was really jarring to order a $25 pair of glasses from Zenni and have them be basically indistinguishable from my old $400 pair.

Similar experience with Jins (brick and mortar Tokyo chain expanding into US, nice designs, lens grinding bots, 30 min turn). $80, better than my old $600 pair.

the WP glasses i tried a few years ago via mailed preview package all seemed like the very lowest quality i had ever handled -- flimsy plastic, cheap-feeling hinges. totally pleased with my 40$ pair from zenni though.

Plus Zenni has more "normal" styles of glasses that you don't need a beard and 6-inch-tall haircut to pull off.

I have no idea what this means.

Oh I think you do.

I totally don't. I have long-ish hair and no beard at the moment. What does this even mean? I'm trying to visualise glasses that require those things to "pull off" but I'm drawing a blank.

It's often true (even for brick-and-morter optometrists) that the floor models are not as solid as the frames they would actually sell you.