What really defines an independent optician?

On 26 September Alessandra Salimbene brought to SILMO Paris a question the industry almost always takes for granted: who, really, is an independent optician? On 21 October she revisited it in Italian, in a shorter version of the talk, with the opticians who have followed her work for years. The recording is in Italian.

What the webinar covers

The starting point is the market. In 2025, for the first time, the sector’s largest group earned more from selling to the public than from selling to opticians: the biggest supplier has also become the biggest competitor (the full analysis is in the EssilorLuxottica 2025 report). Against this background, defining the independent optician by what it is not, neither a chain nor a group, is no longer enough.

• Independent means free. Free to choose products, communication and the way customers are followed over time. It is not only a matter of ownership: a practice that buys 80% of its range from a single supplier has already given up part of that freedom.
• Freedom without direction turns into dispersion. Many practices with excellent ranges and high skills have struggled because they lacked a clear positioning, including a choice of which customers to serve.
• Freedom, relationship, identity. The three words that define the independent. The question is no longer how big am I, but how recognisable am I.
• The European outlook. Looking beyond your own neighbourhood helps you read market signals earlier and talk to customers who travel and research, including through artificial intelligence.
• The Hoya lesson. A large group that chooses not to sell to the public and to create market categories: for an optician it means becoming the reference for one category in their own town, as in the example of myopia management for children (further reading: Big Fish in a Small Pond).
• The Optical Retail Marketing Wheel. The ten-spoke map for keeping direction, from strategic planning to communication.

The question is no longer how big am I, but how recognisable am I.

The European Independent Optical Mastermind

In the last part of the webinar Alessandra presents the Mastermind: a small group of independent opticians from several European countries working together for a year, with working sessions in different countries, hosted inside real businesses. Applications are open and non-binding.

Further reading

The account of the original talk is in SILMO 2026: what really defines an independent optician?; the same idea runs through Being independent in 2026. The full picture is in the optical retail strategy area. To work on your own practice’s positioning there is Trade Up; for a first assessment, book a call.