‘The beginning of a new era’: How Zenni harnessed its vertically integrated business model to reach record heights

Even during a pandemic, people still needed glasses. As a result, online eyewear brand Zenni Optical has been riding a rocket ship.

After an initial slowdown in March due to supply chain constraints, Zenni says it saw record growth in 2020. With people stuck at home, the company received an influx of new customers trying to avoid going to the eye doctor. And since most were working from home, Zenni’s line of blue light blocking lenses grew at an unprecedented clip.

According to chief product officer Bai Gan, this past year was “the beginning of a new era” for eyewear brands. He joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and talked about why.

Zenni, which was founded in 2003, makes very affordable eyewear -- glasses as cheap at $7. According to Gan, this is because the company uses a vertically integrated business model. Zenni owns much of its supply chain, meaning it cut out middlemen most other brands deal with daily. It owns a one million-square-foot manufacturing facility outside of Shanghai, and works directly with suppliers to get the best rates. For its first decade as a company, Zenni focused on creating this infrastructure. “Originally, we just focused on that core competency -- the backend,” said Gan.

Now, Zenni is in hyper-growth and trying to make more people aware of its products. It wields, however, a double-edged sword. “It was a little bit harder to really communicate quality to customers when the price was so exceptionally low,” he said. As a result, over the last few years the company has been on a marketing blitz trying to introduce itself to more customers.

One of Zenni’s big PR approaches is influencer marketing. The company has worked with online personalities and well-known designers -- including Rashida Jones and Coco and Breezy. On the podcast, Gan describe the brand’s “sector by sector” approach. This includes working with gaming personalities to evangelize Zenni’s blue light blocking lenses.

According to Gan, the growth is only beginning. For years, online glasses sales stagnated, but the coronavirus changed all that. Now, he said, Zenni is trying to implement a growth strategy its slowly been building. “That vertically integrated business model,” he said, “now seems to be giving us a lot of edges over the competitors.”