Your business model relies heavily on buying bulk sunglasses at discount prices and then finding ways to market them to retail customers. Buying wholesale sunglasses is the easy part. You just visit the Olympic Eyewear website, shop a bit, and place an order. Marketing is the harder part. Have you ever considered marketing with consumer education?

Consumer education has been a marketing tool in other industries for decades. It is based on a strategy of informing your customers about things relevant to your products and services. For example, a lawncare company might teach customers on how to keep pests out of the yard. A grocery store educates customers by offering cooking classes.

You could do the same thing with retail sunglasses. How? There are two specific topics that are like gold in our industry: eye health and the proper way to take care of sunglasses so they last as long as possible.

Sunglasses and UV Rays

We are all familiar with the fact that a pair of sunglasses' most important function is to protect against the dangers of UV rays. Optometrists talk about it all the time. So do family doctors and general practitioners. It is an important message customers can never hear often enough.

You might contact local optometrists and ask if they be willing to team up for a promotional event. You offer to let one of their team members to come in and do a free seminar on eye health. The optometrist gets the opportunity to potentially pull new patients while you have the opportunity to get new customers into your store. Both of you win.

You could also consider working with a local optometrist to sponsor a display at a community health fair. Sharing the financial burden as sponsors gives both of your companies the opportunity to participate in the fair at half the cost. You also end up co-marketing, which means combining your strengths for mutual benefit.

Proper Care and Treatment

Another way to use consumer education as a marketing tool is to educate your customers on the proper way to take care of their sunglasses. You can do this right from your current location without the need to bring anyone else in. Perhaps you might offer a brief presentation two or three times per day on a set schedule. Then advertise that schedule.

Educate customers about:

• safely cleaning their sunglasses without scratching the lenses
• the importance of keeping sunglasses in a case when not being used
• protecting plastic frames by not wearing sunglasses on top of the head
• not leaving sunglasses unprotected in the car glove box.

A presentation of this nature is a golden opportunity to both teach customers a thing or two and offer them accessories like cases, tune-up kits, and cleaning cloths. You are teaching them how to take care of their sunglasses and offering them the products to do so.

Think Bigger than Just Wholesale Sunglasses

Using education as a marketing tool is all about thinking bigger than just the sunglasses themselves. It is thinking about what types of things would benefit your customers to know. If you can figure that out, you will never run out of marketing ideas. Just find out what they want to know and then get them the answers.

Retail customers appreciate being educated. They appreciate learning things about the products they buy. As a retailer, do not be content to just buy wholesale sunglasses from us and put them on display. Go to the next level by reaching out and educating your customers. You'll sell more products and boost your reputation as an authority in the industry.