The FINANCIAL — One of the leading Optical Company in Georgia, Roniko, sells 3,000 Ray-Bans a year from the total 10,000 sold annually. Roniko is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Roniko will have special offers on throughout the summer.
Currently it is running the “I Love Ray-Ban” campaign. Roniko plans to sell 1,500-2,000 Ray-Ban glasses during the summer.
Roniko was founded 15 years ago. The company is an official distributor of world famous brands. Roniko offers its customers world famous brands including Versace, Cartier, Prada, Chanel and etc.
“This is the 15th summer of Roniko’s existence on the local market” said Roland Javakhia, General Manager.
“While summing up our total activities, I can tell you that we have passed through quite hard times. First of all, the most important achievement for us is winning the trust of our customers. From the very beginning we have been oriented on the consumer and since then our main principals have been honesty towards our clients and towards one other at the company.”
We have strongly tried to be oriented on the quality of our products. This is what I can tell you briefly about the company, but the most important testament is that we survived the hard years and serious economic problems in the country. We are all dependent on the situation in the country, if the country’s development is progressing, then our company benefits also.
“I would consider the years 1996-1997-1998 the most stable years, as in recent years there have been some economic problems. The year 2007 was relatively stable but from August of the year 2008 everything changed significantly.”
“We worked a lot on preparing our staff, improving the service, enlarging the network and assortments as well.”
“The formula of success for our company is that we always offer our clients the right price, which should be neither very high and nor too cheap, it should be exact. Our company’s’ strength is that we are working without any mediators.”
“Every year we visit world leading, famous exhibitions like Silmo – the Optical Exhibition in Paris and Mido – the International Optics, Optometry and Ophthalmology Exhibition in Milan, where optical industries fashion is created and all novelties are presented. We always become acquainted with the novelties at these events so that we can provide our network with renewed collections. That’s what we have succeeded in and where our company’s strength lies. I would like to state that there are few companies in different countries of the world which are the distributors of the products themselves and have their own network. We are proud that we are distributing the products by ourselves and this fact gives us the ability to offer an affordable price to our customers.”
“When we say that we always try to analyze, that means that we are studying the consumer and the market. It’s not hard for us because we represent a local company and we are aware of the mentality of our people. I would like to tell you that in Georgia our consumers have a very good sense of fashion and respect the quality and brand of the product. I can’t say though that this tendency exists in the different regions throughout the country. But anyway there are people who know precisely the value of the glasses they buy.”
“This is how we gained the trust of our customers. When we first offered customers Versace, within 2-3 weeks we had run low, because the demand of the market was so high.”
“Sunglasses are a very popular accessory in Georgia, and we welcome all potential clients to our network to try out our range on offer. That’s why we always have more than 1,000 different sunglasses, suitable for all face shapes. We always try to fit our glasses to the individual customers who visit us.”
“We are celebrating our 15th anniversary this year. While analyzing the success of our company we should definitely mention the means of our partners and their help. We are now working with almost all of the original partners who our company started partnership with 15 years ago. Many large companies are our partners. The number one in the world is Luxottica and this company has more than 30 brands in its portfolio, including those as famous as Chanel, Ferragamo, Versace, Ray-Ban, Vogue, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Persol and so on.”
“It’s not up for discussion; Italians are the most famous in the sphere of Optics, they constantly create the most fascinating designs of glasses. World famous Italian Marcolin Group is also a partner of ours. Brands like Ferrari, Roberto Cavalli, Mont Blanc, Tom Ford are among the brands that are offered by Marcolin Group. We are working with these world famous companies without any mediators, a point which should be stressed. The third group that we are working with is De Rigo Group, which also has famous brands under it, such as Chopard, Escada, Zegna, Police, Givenchy.”
“Our main strength is working with world famous partners, with famous brands. We are working with very high quality contact lenses and with high quality actual lenses and in the whole range we offer our consumers a complex service. A person who visits us at the shop gets the whole package of service, including seeing an actual ophthalmologist, with very high quality and modern equipment. Our ophthalmologists are well trained and every year visit Italy or France, as well as being visited here by foreign specialist, to keep up to date with any changes in the sphere.
Clients visit a doctor, then return to the main hall and choose the most needed model of eyewear for them and may as well use the service of in-house specialist who can repair their glasses if necessary too. Clients can also choose find accessories for glasses in Roniko too. That’s what I call a complex service.
Q. Which brand is most in demand at Roniko at the moment and what determines the high demand of the brand?
A. One of the most popular brand in Roniko’s network is Ray-Ban. We sell more than 3,000 Ray-Ban glasses per year. In all of the countries of the world Ray-Ban is one of the most popular and leading among eyewear brands. Ray-Ban has also designed ophthalmologic frames for glasses. Ray- Ban has been very strong in the sphere of sunglasses and has now added ophthalmologic frames to its network.
Ray-Ban, as I mentioned above, is leading among most demanded eyewear brands. Ray-ban is a brand for everyone, often picked by very rich people, presidents, and generally successful people. President Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy use Ray-Ban sunglasses.
“We mostly import eyewear from Italy as well Eschenbach and Fielmann brands from Germany and Cartier from France.
We import glasses from Asia, Korea, Hong Kong and China as well.
Prices at Roniko start from 15 GEL. We have also created an economy-package due to the crisis. For example we have very nice sunglasses from Asia with fascinating designs costing just 80 GEL and with very high quality. Gemini is also one of the brands that we offer to our customers and sunglasses under this brand have corresponding prices. For example: if we were talking about Timberland sunglasses then it would be a very different price but taking in to account the quality, there is not a very big difference really.
The maximum price of sunglasses at our network is for the brand Cartier which individually cost more than 3,000 GEL, which are not sold very often, but still has its own niche. The most well sold production in our network is glasses that cost around 100 GEL.
Ray-Ban sunglasses cost 250 GEL, Ralf Lauren – 400 GEL, and Chanel – 500 GEL.
Q. Many stores like Mango and Next offer their consumers quite fashionable sunglasses at quite low prices. What advantages does your production have compared to those stores?
A. We don’t feel any competition from theses stores because we are a specialized, professional Optics shop. Accordingly we are selling much more. There was one case when one of the networks asked us to sell glasses which they had imported, but we refused, because it’s the principle of our company that we don’t work with mediators, we only have relations with the producers. That’s why these shops can’t compete with us because we will always be better with the price and quality. We are better with our education and design, we know what people like.
Q. What can you tell us about the Ophthalmologic service that Roniko offers its customers?
A. Over the last month we added some medical equipment to our ophthalmologic centre in order to check our patients even better. Ophthalmology is a very precise science and we want our clients to be served with the highest quality ophthalmologic service. We offer our clients very high quality Essilor lenses from France or contact lenses of Ciba Vision from Switzerland.
In one month more than 1,000 contact lenses are sold and belong to Air Optics in our network. We have 11 doctors and consulting rooms. We have very high potential in selling contact lenses and we pay a big attention on this field.
Q. How many employees do you have at the moment at your company?
A. We have 80 employees at our company. We have some pupils as well because we have 12 shops in Georgia and we are going to enlarge our network.
Q. How important is advertising for your company and how much money do you spend on advertising annually?
A. Advertising is definitely very important for us. With the help of advertising we communicate with our consumers. We spend about 100,000 GEL on advertising per year.
As I mentioned above it’s the 15th anniversary of Roniko and we have a very wide range of offers prepared for our customers this summer. From 1 June we have been offering our customers the marketing campaign “I Love Ray-Ban”. If you look at our shop decorations you will definitely notice the inscription “I Love Ray-Ban”. Our customer can buy Ray-Ban glasses with discount and additionally Roniko is giving the present 50 GEL Ray-Ban card.
We want our customers to share their emotions with one another. So for 1 month clients can visit us and receive Ray-Ban glasses for 50 GEL less than the real price and then the following client who buys glasses at our shop will receive the card as a present. The “I Love Ray-Ban” campaign has been going on for 1 week and we are already seeing its effect.
We have made advertisements about Ray-Ban in different magazines, radios and in shop windows. We will have some special draws and prizes for our customers throughout the whole summer. We plan to sell around 1,500-2,000 Ray-Ban glasses this summer.
In July there will be the presentation of our new collection. There are new models for example for Ralph Lauren, which sell out immediately. The sunglasses cost 485 GEL and are very much in demand. Sometimes our customers buy only one and the same model, for example just one model of Ray-Ban can have more than 200 pairs sold.
Q. Together with sunglasses you offer contact as well as cosmetic lenses. How high is the demand for lenses?
A. Both cosmetic and contact lenses have a very important place in the optics. There are categories of people who use contact lenses and demand for contact lenses is growing every day. We have Freshlook contact lenses which have 8 colours, new generation silicone hydrogel contact lenses, Air Optics, Night&Day and now we have added 6 more colours with the MAXIMA colours brand from Britain. The contact lenses should definitely be suggested by an ophthalmologist. A patient should first of all learn how to use the lenses in the right way and then everything will be alright.
We sell about 1,500 contact lenses a month.
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