FramesDirect.com Founders Featured in Houston Chronicle Business Article
Moneymakers series questions local optometrists about their dot-com eyewear vision.
Houston, TX (PRWEB) May 7, 2005 -- The founders of Houston-based eyewear
company FramesDirect.com (http://www.framesdirect.com) are featured in the Houston
Chronicle’s Moneymaker business series about local entrepreneurs.
The
article, titled "Five questions with Guy Hodson and Dhavid Cooper" (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3167182)
features a history of the FramesDirect.com web site and the vision of the
transplanted South African duo who built up five Houston optometry practices in
the 1980s and sold them in 1994 to take advantage of the newest technology of
the day, the Internet. FramesDirect.com was rolled out as a 24-hour/7-day-a-week
online eyewear store in 1996 and currently features 110,000 products, including
designer frames, eyeglasses, sunglasses, prescription lenses and contact
lenses.
Always looking for new technology to enhance the business,
FramesDirect.com recently launched a patented new online technology for finding
eyeglasses, sunglasses and frames, the FrameFinder Virtual Try-On System (http://www.framefinder.com),
which allows users to “try on” frames from their personal computer by simply
uploading a photo of themselves. Currently, more than 13,000 frames are in the
system and available to sample.
When questioned about how the web site
survived the dot-com bust in 2000, Dr. Hodgson said that FramesDirect.com
followed “a well-crafted and articulated strategy grounded in earning real
profits” and manageable growth, which allowed the company to prosper while other
web sites failed. That strategy continues today, with sales 52 percent above
last year at this time, he said, and international expansion with the upcoming
launch of a new South African contact lens web store, 0860
Contacts.
About FramesDirect.com
Dr.’s Cooper and Hodgson have been in
practice in the Houston area for over 20 years, and founded FramesDirect.com in
1996, which is a global leader in online eyeglasses sales. They have a Houston
eye care office and eyewear showroom, employing two additional licensed
optometrists and a staff of experienced opticians. The websites can be viewed at
http://www.framefinder.com and http://www.framesdirect.com
and the office can be reached at 1-800-248-9427.
Contact:
Richard V.
Burckhardt
1-800-248-9427
e-mail protected from spam bots
Skype:
rburckhardt
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb237176.htm