Company offers affordable eyeglasses, paid for in instalments

Jerome Lapaire

The eyewear company offers patients the option to pay for eyeglasses on flexible payment terms, ‘Lipa Mdogo Mdogo’.
 

Photo credit: Pool

 As he worked at a local firm in Kenya, Jerome Lapaire, a Swiss entrepreneur, discovered a gap in the eyecare business. He noticed that while many people had poor eyesight, eyeglasses remained a luxury product.

This inspired him to set up an affordable eyewear company which offers patients an option of paying for eyeglasses in instalments. They also off free home delivery services around Nairobi. Lapaire founded Lapaire Group in 2018 with a capital of over Sh500,000 after realising that accessibility is the main problem when it comes to health services.

“Consulting an eye specialist and getting eyeglasses requires a lot of time and money, which most people in Kenya cannot afford,” he says.

He begun by providing free vision tests in a number companies, private and public, and went ahead to open his first branch in Nairobi.

“Lapaire conducts free vision tests and provides affordable eyeglasses starting from Sh3,400, the lenses all come with anti-reflective and anti-scratch options for comfort and durability,” he says, adding that they propose additional lens options such as photochromic, blue-blocking and photomax lenses to meet a variety of eyecare needs. The company, which has now been in operation for three years, has 130 employees across the continent, with 14 branches in seven countries: Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Burkina-faso, Benin, Togo and Mali.

The prices start from Sh3,400 for anti-glare eye glasses to Sh9,900 for progressive lenses.

“Our customers can order online or purchase at our shops, pay in three instalments and get free delivery or at a very small fee if located outside our coverage,” he explains.

“Given our wide collection of frames, it’s difficult to list all of the African cities we’ve named our frames after. So far we have covered at least one city in each country in the African continent, ranging from Cape town in South Africa, Nairobi in Kenya, Libreville in Gabon, Cairo in Egypt and Fez in Morocco.”

Each frame goes through crafting stages, the glasses are assembled in Kenya with lenses manufactured by Essilor, one of the world leaders in corrected lenses. All lenses come with anti-reflective and anti-scratch treatments.

“Eyeglasses can prevent or cure most of the refractive errors, and compensate well for eye defaults. Compared to contact lenses or treatments for refractive errors (surgeries and eye drops for myopia), eyeglasses are more affordable and easier to use and therefore accessible to everyone,” says Jerome.

“We have developed a simple and accessible offer that can match the needs of a large number of people, targeting the D-class up to A-class. People without a medical cover come to us to get vision tests for free and get affordable quality eyeglasses.”

The company’s main challenge is getting eyecare professionals. In Kenya there is one optometrist for every 250,000 Kenyans, so finding these professionals can be difficult.”

Jerome adds that as they aim to gain more exposure in their markets, and with the decline of the pandemic graph, they have learnt a lot about improving their pan-African logistics and last-miles delivery to guarantee customers’ satisfaction. The business also plans to open 25 new optical centers across Africa within the next year.

The World Health Organisation notes that over 26.3 million people in Africa are estimated to have a form of visual disability, and that over 550 million people are in need of eye glasses.