Warby Parker vs Luxottica | The Empire of Eyes

In a bar near Wharton in 2008, four students huddled around an idea born from frustration. David Gilboa had just lost his $700 prescription glasses on a trip to Thailand. When he complained about the cost, Neil Blumenthal, who had run a non-profit distributing glasses in developing countries, told him that no pair of glasses costs more than about $40 to manufacture. Curious, the friends dug into the industry and discovered something startling: one company controlled almost everything. Luxottica owned Ray-Ban, Oakley, Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, and produced designer frames for Armani and Prada. It had a hand in manufacturing, distribution, retail, and even insurance plans. The students thought: if Zappos could sell shoes online and Drugstore.com could sell health products on the web, why not glasses? They could cut out the middleman, sell frames for $95, and still make a profit. That idea became Warby Parker, a startup built to challenge a multinational that had spent decades consolidating its empire.

How Luxottica Built Its Empire