Int'l MKT Research Paper

Running head: DUE NORTH, WARBY PARKER’S FIRST STORE ABROAD 1
Due North,
Warby Parker’s First Store Abroad:
A Research Paper on International Marketing Strategy
Noah B. Johnson
CAPA: The Global Education Network

Abstract
Since its establishment in 2010, Warby Parker and its founders have set out to—thus far
successfully—revolutionize the consumer eyewear industry, as it has been known for the
last half century. “Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty
objective: to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for
socially conscious businesses,” reads in bold letters across the top of Warby Parker’s
website, when customers click on the ‘Our Story’ tab (Warby Parker, 2016). This credo,
or mission statement of sorts, is exactly what makes Warby Parker a one-of-a-kind,
entrepreneurial business success story, and one that resonates far beyond the scope of just
the eyewear industry, particularly with today’s millennial, technology immersed
generation. Whether it is the company’s witty, yet subtle, marketing campaigns or its
industry leading devotion to social responsibility, Warby Parker, in just under seven years
has gone from a four person internet startup—literally operating out of one of the
founder’s apartments—to a major and disruptive industry player. Today the privately
held company, headquartered in New York City, is valued at $1.2 billion with nearly 40
bricks-and-mortar locations and roughly 1000 employees (Wall Street Journal (WSJ),
2015). This paper examines Warby Parker’s quirky, while noteworthy approach to
marketing, specifically as applied to its first international retail location in Toronto,
Canada.
Introduction
“Great, big, huge, wonderful news: we're opening our first store in Toronto! Bring
yourself (and your friends) to the grand opening of our newest store, Queen St. West, this

weekend. It’s our very first spot in Canada, so you can bet we'll be celebrating! Take a
sneak peek today on Snapchat (username: warbyparker),” (@warbyparker, 2016). This
caption, as seen on Warby Parker’s official Instagram account (yes, that is a thing) below
a quaint photograph of the company’s first foray into the international retail market, is a
perfect example of the company’s millennial-minded, social media savvy marketing
scheme. On August 6th, 2016, at approximately 11:00 A.M. EST, to the excitement and
long awaited anticipation of local Torontonians, doors officially opened at 684 Queen St.
W. —Warby Parker’s then newest retail location (Toronto Life, 2016). When asked in a
Q&A published by one magazine, “Why Canada?” and more specifically, “Why
Toronto?,” Warby Parker co-CEO, Neil Blumenthal, had this to say, “Each province has
so much to offer, but Toronto’s size and reputation as a cultural hub caught our eye. We
love that we can see the CN tower from New York State” (Toronto Life, 2016). David
Gilboa, the company’s other co-CEO, added, “We’re excited to be expanding
internationally for the first time ever. We launched our Canadian website in 2012, but
until now, we didn’t have a retail presence here, and we’re excited that we now get to
meet our Canadian customers face-to-face. From an aesthetic perspective, Toronto is
such a diverse city, which means there’s an incredible range of tastes and styles colliding
in one place” (Toronto Life, 2016). As the 35th addition to Warby’s existing retail
presence, this paper will analyze the company’s unicorn business model and likewise its
first penetration into the global market.

Company Background & Business Model
The magic all began in 2010, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the prestigious Wharton
Business School; graduate classmates and like-minded entrepreneurs, Neil Blumenthal,
David Gilboa, Andrew Hunt, and Jeffrey Raider all shared a vision alongside a unique
business acumen that would prove to pay long-term dividends far beyond what they
could have ever imagined seven years ago. “Every idea starts with a problem” (Warby
Parker, 2016). The narrative today goes that while on a backpacking trip, co-founder
David Gilboa, lost his eyeglasses and was forced to go his entire first semester of
graduate school without them, due to the astronomically high cost to replace them
(Vogue, 2010). Sharing Hunt’s frustration of being unable to find an affordable
replacement, he and his three fellow classmates sought out to establish an alternative to
their nearsighted dilemma. And thus, Warby Parker was founded. After extensive
research and consideration of over 2000 potential names, as well as polling hundreds of
fellow Wharton peers, the co-founders found that neither the words “Warby” nor
“Parker” had any existing negative associations. The names are derived from two
characters, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker, in the semi-fictional novel, The Dharma
Bums, written by Beat Generation author, Jack Kerouac. The novel is subsequently
given out during training to all Warby Parker new hires, as the founders each identified
deeply with many of the themes and cultural commentary portrayed in the novel.
So, for a bit of background on the eyewear industry and why the co-founders came up
with the vision to interrupt a seemingly less than glamorous industry, enter: Luxottica.
Luxottica is the world’s largest eyewear company, and has been for much of the last 55-

years since its establishment in 1961, based out of Milan, Italy. Exceeding revenue of
$9.5 billion in 2015, it is the parent company to nearly all of the leading eyewear
companies across design, manufacturing, retail, and even insurance providers—including
EyeMed, the second largest vision insurance provider in the United States (Luxottica
Annual Report, 2015). These subsidiaries and brand licensees include numerous
household names in consumer eyewear such as Lens Crafters, Sunglass Hut (the leading
sunglass retailer in the world), Target Optical, Ray Ban, Oakley, Persol, and many, many
more. Effectively a global monopoly, the industry giant dominates the market, keeping
prices artificially high—similar to the likes of controversial companies like DeBeers in
the diamond industry, and Monsanto in agricultural markets. Today consumers—not
shopping with Warby Parker—can expect to pay as much for their glasses as they would
for a new iPhone, on average $300-$700 for frames and prescription lenses. These high
prices come as a direct result of the business model perfected, for lack of a better word,
by companies like Luxottica. And so in a $75-billion-dollar per year industry globally, of
which approximately one-third comes out of the United States, which has seen little to no
innovation with continually rising prices, Warby Parker’s founders saw a massive
opportunity (Bloomberg, 2015). Warby Parker designs and brands their own frames in-
house, works directly with their suppliers and manufactures, and ultimately sells their
product direct to customers in order to avoid middle man licensing fees, which are often
10 to 15 percent, according to Blumenthal. In turn, Warby then passes its savings on
directly to its customers, offering high quality prescription eyewear starting at just $95.
While this circumvention of traditional cost-driving markup roadblocks may seem like an

innovative business model in and of itself, the Warby Parker founders didn’t just stop
there. In a continually growing dotcom atmosphere, lead by perennial powerhouses such
as Amazon and Alibaba, the consumer goods and retail market has consistently shifted to
online and mobile shoppers over the past decade. Back in 2010, the company’s founders
took a closer look at the existing e-commerce landscape and found that accessories such
as shoes and jewelry were already being sold online at about a 10 to 15 percent market
share relative to traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers (Columbia Business School,
2015). However, online sales of eyewear accounted for merely less than one percent of
the total market share (Columbia Business School, 2015). With this in mind, they
decided to launch their company as an online only portal where customers could view
various styles, and even try them on virtually right from their computer screen. After
extensive research of the trends in eyewear as well as current business practices, one of
the major conclusions that the founders came to was that current selling practices were
lacking attention to customer experience and satisfaction. Specifically, many retailers
would display, on average, anywhere between 700 and 1000 different styles in a single
showroom; to paraphrase Blumenthal (2015), large variety in selection may attract
customers but can often cause conversion and bookings to suffer. Likewise, Warby
Parker launched with just 27 styles in two to four different colors each, aiming to
encompass a variety of different face shapes and sizes, without overwhelming their
customers. (Fun fact: One of Warby’s original frame styles, Roosevelt, which is still
offered currently, is named after a local Philadelphia pub where the company founders
first began the conception of the company). In February of 2010, just before the official

public launch of warbyparker.com, major fashion and lifestyle magazines GQ and Vogue
both published features on Warby Parker’s glasses alongside designer labels Tom Ford,
Ralph Lauren among others. GQ even dubbed the company the “Netflix of Eyewear”
(see: home try-on program). Almost immediately following the articles, the company
reached its first year sales goals in an astonishing three weeks and sold out of their top 15
styles in just four weeks. One of the company’s niche offerings, unique to their online
model and hence the nod to Netflix, is their home try-on program where customers can
choose up to five different frames to be shipped to them for a free trial, shipping covered
both ways. Within 48-hours of their website launch, the program had to be suspended
due to an unanticipated depletion of inventory. Over the proceeding nine months, Warby
had up to 20,000 customers on their waiting list for glasses (Business Insider, 2013). Still
in school at the time, the founders were handling customer service needs directly from
their laptops, sometimes while sitting in lectures even, recounts Jeff Raider. In an
unmitigated dedication to their early adopters’ customer experience, many of those on the
waiting list received free glasses as an apology for their extended wait time. Amidst the
early chaos due to the unexpected boom in sales, the company still managed to not lose
sight of one their main objectives (and one of 10 company “Core Values”), do good.
Leveraging the international development pedigree of one of their co-founders, Gilboa,
and his experience working with VisionSpring, Warby Parker introduced the “Buy a Pair,
Give a Pair” program. VisionSpring is a non-profit organization that specializes in
providing affordable eyewear to the less fortunate. It is estimated that over 700 million
people worldwide lack access to corrective lenses, an 800-year-old invention mind you,

which are proven to have the ability of increasing an individual’s productivity by up to 35
percent and their monthly income by up to 20 percent (Warby Parker, 2016). The way it
works is that at the end of every month, Warby tallies the total number of glasses its sold
and then makes a cash donation directly to VisionSpring, which covers the cost of
sourcing that number of glasses. The non-profit then trains women and men in
developing nations to perform basic eye exams, sell eyewear at an affordable price and
most importantly to spread awareness and make eye care available to their communities
(Warby Parker, 2016). The reason Warby Parker, alongside VisionSpring, has decided to
sell the glasses at an affordable cost rather than simply donating them is based around the
reality that oftentimes handouts trickledown into a culture of dependency and lack long-
term sustainability. Also, this practice gives locals an opportunity to earn their own
living while helping out their communities. To date, Warby Parker is proud to say its
distributed over 2 million pairs of glasses around the globe. Fast forward to 2015, where
the company earned around $100 million in revenue—triple its 2013 numbers—Fast
Company Magazine named Warby Parker the most innovate company, ahead of even
likes of Apple and Google (Fast Company Magazine, 2015). With big wig investors such
as Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew, Apple board member and business mogul, joining its
movement, Warby has managed to achieve noteworthy marks in retail metrics in areas
such as sales per square foot in their bricks-and-mortar locations and net promoter
scores—used to analyze overall customer experience. In New York City, its store pulls
in sales per square foot greater than Tiffany Co. and scalable only to Apple (Gilboa,

2016). These are just a couple of the many examples that make Warby Parker the
successful company that is today.
Marketing Strategy
When it comes to Warby Parker’s unique approach to marketing, the company holds
itself to high standard of positive customer experiences, continual innovation, as well as
great looking and affordable, high quality eyewear, all while leading the way for socially
responsible businesses. As Kumar (2014) notes, innovation is not only the cornerstone of
growth, but it can also affect entire industries.
In regards to customer experience, the company puts its customers first at every step of
the way, as customer loyalty can be influenced by positive interactions with employees
(Ozuem, Thomas, & Lancaster, 2015), emphasizing that good service can have positive
outcomes for the brand. This idea has proven to be paramount for Warby; according to
one of the company’s co-CEOs, over half of the customer traffic both in retail and
online/mobile comes in as a direct result of a referral (Gilboa, 2015). “We do our best to
remain experience focused and medium agnostic,” says Blumenthal (2015). The
company currently is proud to maintain an average net promoter score (a data metric
gathered from customer experience surveys reflecting their likelihood to recommend the
brand/product to a peer) of 85 percent, which is by and large unheard of in retail (Forbes,
2016). Some of the steps that the company has taken to ensure their customers’
satisfaction include a maximum six-second response time when dialing their stateside,
highly vetted CX (customer experience) support team, as well as offering a no questions
asked free of charge returns and shipping policy. While developing a brand that must

constantly be cognizant of marketplace copycats in the realm of Internet startups,
Blumenthal (2015) says that he and his colleagues have always tried to remain “in the
mindset of founders rather than CFOs.” In a data and information era, where the rise and
fall of a company can develop more rapidly than ever before, the Warby Parker founders
have continually found that the key to sustaining their brand firstly and expanding it
secondly, is maintaining authenticity (Gilboa, 2015).
On the innovation front, as mentioned earlier with the endorsement of Fast Company
Magazine, Warby Parker is second to none—especially in retail. While the company was
still in its infancy stages, operating primarily online, customer support teams began to use
social media, namely Twitter, as a means of communicating directly with customers.
During a seminar given to graduate students at the Columbia Business School, Gilboa
recalled the struggles of providing quality feedback in 140 characters or less. As a
workaround, the idea was conceived to reply to customers’ inquiries with short, 30-
second long videos. Originally the founders had imagined that these videos would be a
fun, quirky way to engage with a niche audience; maybe customers would watch the
videos once or twice and move on. Instead they found that, on average, the response
videos were being watched anywhere from 60 to 80 times and generating sizable web
traffic. Also it just their beginning phases, the founders wanted to release their first
annual report so that stakeholders could have some further insight into the growing,
trendy brand. As you can imagine, sticking to Warby Parker fashion, the annual report
came out and was not in the form of traditional stacks of financial reports. Rather they
decided to use info graphics to make the viewing experience more concise,

comprehendible and enjoyable (see an example below).
In the three days following the release of their annual report, the company saw its highest
consecutive sales days to date (Gilboa, 2013). Warby Parker also makes use of other
social channels such as Instagram, mentioned earlier, Snapchat and Tumblr to promote
not just their product but also their lifestyle brand. Most recently, over this past summer,
Warby used its social media forums to announce its “Summer Sound Sessions.” A quick
blurb from the company blog explains: “Summer’s all about the right summer
soundtrack. (O.K., it’s about way more than that, but the soundtrack is pretty important.)
To kick things off, and keep them going all season long, we’re putting on a series of
concerts at a whole bunch of our stores. Introducing our Summer Sound Sessions: 10
weeks, in 10 cities, with 10 local artists that we love” (blog.warbyparker, 2016). Another

unique and surprisingly well received marketing campaign that the company ran, and
continues to utilize, is the Warby Parker School Bus. When Warby’s founders first
decided that they were ready to expand into the bricks-and-mortal retail sector, they
wanted to do so the right way and while minimizing risky overhead costs. So by utilizing
the existing online data from where their highest concentration of shoppers were located,
they launched the school bus—a gutted out and revamped yellow school bus transformed
into a 45-foot-long eyewear showroom on wheels. The bus traveled to 12 cities in 12
months and proved to be a great way to scout out future retail locations. Warby Parker’s
approach to marketing is truly a one-of-a-kind, multifaceted example of how to captivate
a wide range of consumers. By using abnormal techniques such as these, the company
has already paved the way for numerous adopters of their practices including Tuft &
Needle mattresses, Away luggage and others.
International Expansion
Staying in tune with their highly calculated and astute approach to retail, Warby Parker
cut no corners whilst making its international debut last August. The company chose the
trendy West Queen West neighborhood in its Canadian neighbor to the north, Toronto—
or to millennials, who may prefer, “The 6.” Warby’s retail scouting team took into
account every inch and detail when selecting the location, such as southern facing
windows as to let natural light in, terrazzo library inspired flooring and even bookshelves
lined with Toronto and Canadian authors (Chatelaine, 2016). As with each of their new
retail stores, the company also released two exclusive frames, sold only in the Toronto
location, to commemorate the opening. Toronto artist, Micah Lexier, was also

commissioned to design and create a series of three newsprint books, free to customers,
made in collaboration with Canadian artists Maggie Groat, Mark Laliberte, and artist
collective VSVSVS. The retailer also teamed up with artist Jason Polan on an illustrated
map of the best places to sit and read in the Toronto neighborhood (with limited-edition
glasses cloths printed with the map available to the store’s early customers this weekend).
To top it all off, @warbyparker on Snapchat even created location-based “geo-filters” for
its store (Strategy, 2016). Given these factors, Warby Parker took sort of a hybrid
approach to its internationally tailored branding campaign. Elements such as the
standardization of the store layout are ethnocentric on the surface, but by including local
art and literature, it still managed to particularize its global product to a local market
(Matusitz, 2010). As Ozuem et al. (2015b) explain, cross-national differences prevent the
use of blanket marketing strategies. Likewise Backhaus, Muhlfeld and Van Doorn
(2001) state, companies pursue a policy of standardization to reduce costs and gain
efficiency. At the same time, doing so prevents image confusion and customer irritation
(Backhuas et al., 2001; Cayla & Arnould, 2008). Although expanding into Toronto may
not seem to be a huge leap for Warby Parker, it could become a stepping-stone into other
Canadian major cities like Vancouver or Montreal. If it gains enough momentum in
those markets, it might also consider opening further international stores in Europe and
Asia. If that happens, Warby Parker could surely lay down the groundwork to
legitimately challenge Luxottica—which doesn't have much meaningful competition at
the moment—in the future.

Conclusion
Despite all of its success thus far, Warby Parker and its founders still have their work cut
out ahead of them in regards to their ultimate goal of being able to break down the
monopolized eyewear market that exists today. The good news is that in just seven years
since its establishment, they haven’t done too shabby along way. Charles (2007) cited in
Ozuem et al. (2015a) states that when a company operates customer-centrically, it
receives a positive return on investment, satisfied shareholders and stakeholders from
business and the community, and a sustainable business future. That is exactly what
Warby Parker has done and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Warby Parker
consistently puts its customers and employees, along with their local and global
communities, first by delivering high quality glasses at an affordable price, providing top
notch customer experiences, maintaining a carbon neutral footprint, and making millions
of pairs of glasses available to those without them around the world. It is companies like
this that pave the way for the aspiring and socially conscious entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

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