Glossary of optical retail
The words we use in the pages, in the books and in the work with optical practices, explained in a few lines and with a link to the page that goes deeper.
The method entries come from Alessandra Salimbene’s books and from the Method page. The other entries are working definitions used in consulting and training.
- Academy
- Optics & Love’s online catalogue training for owners and staff of optical practices, to follow at your own pace. Commercial, relational and management courses, not clinical. It opens on 16 November 2026; the courses sit on the Thinkific platform, the course pages on this site. Read more →
- Active customer
- A customer who has bought or used a service of the practice in a defined period, for example in the last twenty-four months. The number of active customers, with recalls and returns, measures the continuity of the relationship. Read more →
- Average discount
- The average difference between the list price and the price actually collected, read by category and by team member. Uncontrolled discounting is one of the three items that most often reduce an optical practice’s margin. Read more →
- Average sale
- The average value of a sale in a period: the total sold divided by the number of receipts. In the optical practice it is read together with the composition of the sale, that is how many sales reach the complete solution of frame, lenses, coatings and second pair. Read more →
- Category management
- The qualitative dimension of the range: categories built on customer needs and consistent with the positioning, without overlaps. It goes alongside the quantitative analysis of quantities, stock and turnover. It is the third area of the Wheel. Read more →
- Charismatic Method
- Alessandra Salimbene’s method for the independent optical practice. It connects professional identity, strategy and action in three phases: thinking, in which the owner works on values, motivations and role; strategy, in which they define value proposition, positioning and objectives; action, in which activities are organised by the Optical Retail Marketing Wheel. It grew out of field work and is described in the book Il Centro Ottico Carismatico and in the 2023 degree thesis. Read more →
- Closing rate
- The share of consultations that turn into a sale in a given period. It serves to understand whether the selling process works and where it breaks; it should be read by team member and by type of request, with definitions that stay the same over time. Read more →
- Cognitive overload
- When too much information or too many alternatives block the choice instead of helping it. In the optical practice a reasoned selection, few options shown at a time and simple explanations help the customer to decide. Read more →
- Complete solution
- The sale that answers the customer’s whole visual need: frame, lenses with the right coatings and, when needed, a second pair or solutions for different situations. Sales that stop short of the complete solution are one of the three items that Trade Up measures. Read more →
- Consultative selling
- The selling process that starts from listening and understanding the person, proposes the suitable vision solutions and handles objections, instead of presenting products. At Optics & Love it has a protocol, Eyemage, and a book. Read more →
- Content marketing
- Creating and distributing useful content, such as videos, articles and newsletters, to make the differences between solutions clear before the visit and to give continuity to the relationship afterwards. In the Wheel it is part of external communication, together with visual identity and the communication ecosystem. Read more →
- CRM
- Customer relationship management: managing the relationship with the customer, which in the Wheel aims at a one-to-one relationship. Identifying customers with a well-kept database, differentiating them by value and needs, interacting in a personalised way through loyalty programmes and relational contacts. The first step is to understand what the existing management software allows. Read more →
- Eyemage
- The consultative selling protocol for prescription eyewear and vision solutions, and also the title of the 2025 book. It works on listening, understanding the person, proposing vision solutions, communicating value and handling objections. It is the basis of Optics & Love’s sales courses, in the practice and in the Academy. Read more →
- Gross margin
- The difference between the net selling price, after discounts, and the purchase cost of the product. It is read by category, because frames, lenses and contact lenses behave differently. It is the first indicator of management control. Read more →
- Independent optical practice
- An optical practice led by its owner, belonging neither to a chain nor to a group with a single banner, which decides its own range, services, prices and communication. Alessandra Salimbene’s degree thesis describes eight types of it, from the traditional practice to the start-up. Read more →
- IT organisation
- The cross-cutting phase that supports the Wheel: data collected and managed in the practice management software, up-to-date platforms and devices. Without data none of the ten areas really works; that is why management control starts from what the existing software allows you to extract. Read more →
- KPI
- Key performance indicator: an indicator chosen to measure how the business is doing. In the optical practice the main ones are revenue and margin by category, average sale, closing rate, stock turnover and ageing, average discount, active customers and recalls. They should be defined once and always compared in the same way. Read more →
- Loss aversion
- The mechanism by which a possible loss weighs more than an equivalent gain. In the optical practice the fear of choosing the wrong glasses or spending badly holds back the decision more than the desire to see and feel better: trials, guarantees and after-sales service serve to reduce it. Read more →
- Mastermind
- The European group of optical practice owners who work together, in English, with Alessandra Salimbene. Calendar and investment are communicated in the presentation call; pre-registration is free and non-binding. Read more →
- Messy middle
- The name Google gave to the confused stretch of the buying journey, between the first trigger and the decision, in which the customer explores and evaluates alternatives, often online. For the optical practice it means being found with clear content in that stretch and bringing the decision into the practice. Read more →
- Net margin
- What remains of the gross margin after the practice’s operating costs: staff, rent, equipment, communication. It says whether the business model holds, not only whether the product sells well. Read more →
- Neuromarketing
- Using what neuroscience and behavioural economics know about decisions to understand how a customer chooses and to support that choice with clarity. In optics it concerns emotion, attention, overload, context, trust, loss aversion, memory and identity: the nine articles of the series. Read more →
- Operational planning
- The cross-cutting phase at the centre of the Wheel: putting all the activities of the various areas into practice, correlated and coordinated with each other. In the method it borrows criteria from project management: breaking down complex activities, reading dependencies, allocating resources, re-planning when needed. Read more →
- Optical Retail Marketing Wheel
- The map of the optical practice’s marketing mix, created in 2017 as the evolution of the 2009 Retail Marketing Puzzle. It organises the work into ten areas connected like the spokes of a wheel, from strategic planning to relational capacity, with two cross-cutting phases: IT organisation, which supports the wheel, and operational planning, at the centre. It is the action phase of the Charismatic Method and the reading map of Trade Up. Read more →
- Personal brand
- The owner’s professional identity, recognisable by the market. In the Charismatic Method it is the starting point: the business must resemble the entrepreneur to attract people who resemble them, and the relationship between personal identity and practice name is one of the strategic decisions of the practice. Read more →
- Positioning
- Deciding whom you address, with which services and products and at which price level, so that the customer understands within the first minutes who you are and why to choose you. It is not a claim: it is a series of consistent choices on range, services, prices and communication. In the Charismatic Method it is the heart of the strategic phase. Read more →
- Recall
- The scheduled contact with a customer after the purchase or the check: for a new eye examination, for contact lenses, for a service. It is one of the tools of CRM and of the seventh area of the Wheel. Read more →
- Red Book of Marketing
- The personalised document that concludes Trade Up: it gathers the practice’s priorities and the actions to take, with a working perspective on the following twelve months. It is the result of the strategic check-up, to keep on the desk and check over time. Read more →
- Relational capacity
- The tenth area of the Wheel and the synthesis of all the work: the practice’s ability to create personal, continuous relationships with its market, to be chosen and to become a point of reference for its community, using digital tools as means rather than ends. It concerns customers, suppliers, staff and the local area. Read more →
- Retail Marketing Puzzle
- The 2009 marketing mix model for the optical practice, from which the Optical Retail Marketing Wheel was born in 2017, to give proper weight to IT and digital aspects. Read more →
- Stock ageing
- How long each item has been in the practice without being sold. Read by age band and by category, it shows where capital stays tied up and helps to buy less and better. Read more →
- Stock turnover
- How many times in a year the stock is sold and renewed: sales at cost divided by the average stock value. A low turnover signals product that does not move and capital tied up; in the Wheel it is part of the quantitative analysis of the range. Read more →
- Strategic planning
- The first area of the Optical Retail Marketing Wheel: it turns thinking and strategy into an agenda, with short- and medium-term objectives, the year’s activities, what is postponed and the indicators used to check progress. A shared calendar with monthly themes, promotions, events and training guides the whole year. Read more →
- Super-seller
- In the Wheel, the figure of personal communication in the practice: the team member who consults and sells as a professional communicator, from the initial rapport to closing and future loyalty. It is the role that Eyemage’s consultative selling works on. Read more →
- The Charismatic Practice
- The twelve-week programme in English for owners of independent optical practices, typically with one to four locations, in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking markets. It works on gross margin, stock, consultative selling and customer relationships, with weekly group calls and individual calls. Read more →
- Trade Up
- The strategic check-up of the optical practice with Alessandra Salimbene, in Italian. It reads the situation of the business with the Optical Retail Marketing Wheel as the map, lines up the priorities and turns them into a twelve-month plan, the Red Book of Marketing. Four steps: collection and analysis, feedback, action plan, final discussion. Scope and timing are agreed at the start. Read more →
- Trade Up Online
- The self-guided version of the check-up: an online questionnaire on the practice’s numbers that produces a report with the priorities and the first steps to work on. It is not the twelve-month plan, which remains the result of Trade Up with Alessandra. Available from 15 November 2026. Read more →
- Value proposition
- What the optical practice promises and delivers to its customer: which problems it solves, with which services and products, in what way that differs from others. It is the first item Trade Up reads, because range, prices and communication depend on it. Read more →
- Visual merchandising
- The way the practice space welcomes the customer and displays the product: structure, atmosphere, display. In the Wheel it is the second area, with store design: the practice as a marketing tool that communicates the practice’s identity. Read more →
The entries grow with the pages of the site. For a question about a term or about your practice, the most direct way is a call.