I’m in an airport terminal, standing in front of a store selling designer sunglasses. Such stores are everywhere in airports, malls, and shopping streets. Who’s buying these glasses? They’re not the el cheapo plastic kind, but expensive designer products starting from around $100; they’re not something you just buy casually. I’ve bought sunglasses myself before, but since I need prescription lenses they cost me a few hundred easily, so I’m getting a new pair once every few years at the most. Plus, I’d think sunglasses are seasonal items, but these stores are open all year round. So where does the demand to support all these shops, often in prime retail locations, come from?
I buy mine online, and I buy good ones. Couple of hundred bucks, and they are not prescription.
They are not seasonal for myself and the people I know. But I live in snow country, at altitude. Snow on the ground reflecting the sun makes them an absolute necessity.
I remember visiting in-laws in Pittsburgh, and as usual, I had my sun glasses on. They thought I was trying to be ‘cool’. Nope. It’s habit. My sunglasses go where I go. I don’t wear them at night, but might have them on on a cloudy day.
I agrée with enipla: sunglasses aren’t seasonal items. They’re important to have year-round. Snow blindness can have permanent impairment.
That’s why General Jaruzelski of Poland wore tinted glasses almost all the time. He had permanent eye damage from being sent to a work camp in Siberia.
As for the cost and availability in airports, I’d guess it’s just one more high end thing that might appeal to bored air travellers.
What’s for sale at airports is going to skew towards gifts and “emergency” purchases (there must be an actual business term for the latter, but I don’t know it).
By “emergency” I mean stuff like electric cables / adapters, headphones, eye masks, bags etc, stuff that you just need right now either from a lack of planning or because something broke.
And sunglasses fit in this category. A significant proportion of passangers will be flying from somewhere overcast, or at night, or colder than the destination, get dazzled by the sun at the airport or on the plane, and realize they need to buy sunglasses.
Why only the expensive brands? Well everything at an airport is expensive*. The aforementioned electrical cables are about 10x what you’d pay on amazon. Clearly a low-price-high-volume sales model doesn’t work for airports.
* I’ve previously expressed confusion about the whole “duty free” concept; people get excited about duty free, yet I’ve never seen any products that were cheaper than buying in regular brick-and-mortar stores, let alone online. But people who regularly buy perfumes and high-end spirits assure me that there are discounts to be found.
I checked “Which”, a consumer magazine produced in the UK. They say that “Some products, such as bottles of spirits, make-up and perfume, are much cheaper if you buy at Duty Free shops or onboard the plane rather than on the high street.”
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A litre bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey was £20 from both easyJet and Jet2 but the average supermarket price was £32 in August 2023.
Gordon’s Premium Pink Gin was £15 with British Airways and £12.89 at World Duty Free stores but £24 on average at the supermarket.
I haven’t worn sunglasses since I gave up on contact lenses; the transition lenses, besides being stupidly expensive, always seemed like they’d be annoying indoors, and I don’t spend a lot of time in the sun. In other words, I’m not the average sunglass consumer.
However, back when I did wear contacts and use sunglasses, I probably lost ten pairs. It was a running joke that the first day of any vacation would be spent finding new sunglasses and a sun hat. If we’d had more disposable income at the time, I could see myself stopping at the kiosk in the airport instead of having to stop at a drugstore after I’d left my sunglasses on the plane or at security or in a cab on the way to the airport. I do own a neck pillow, headphones, and a charging cable that I got at airports.
Did any of you happen to step on a pair at the bottom of Lake Huron this summer?
If so, I’ll send you my address and postage.
Thanks,
mmm
As someone with a family history of cataracts, it is recommended I always sunglasses available, and yes, mine are prescription, but I also keep a supply of clip-ons for my regular specs.
Meanwhile yes, the “Sunglass Hut” type businesses do trend towards higher price lines… in the specific case of Sunglass Hut itself, since 2001 they have been part of the Luxxotica eyewear conglomerate, who have a reputation of upjumping brands into the “designer” tier keeping profit margins high.
Where someone who does not need to charge during that travel day, and knows that at destination they will be able to quickly drop into CVS and buy a cheap one, will do so.
Absolutely, but I think it’s a common enough occurrence for people to think “I need to charge right now”.
Also Im thinking more of international airports, where you may not be confident of what you can easily buy at the destination (eg I’ve been to countries where I couldn’t find a usb to power outlet plug for less than $20 in a supermarket).
But most of my other points apply to domestic airports too.
My phone inevitably runs out of charge in the airport, often during a multi-hour layover.
@Mean_Mr.Mustard , I plan to never again find myself in a lake (my mom’s family lived near the PA shore of Lake Erie and we’d go there. In the 70’s. I have some…issues with lakes now), but I certainly appreciate you not including the bit about my “sin” hat before I got in with the edit!
I have a suspicion that these kinds of kiosks, in malls and airports, may be a sort of pyramid scheme or franchise scam? Sunglasses, phone covers etc etc.
Perhaps people who are not doing so well financially are sometimes suckered in to putting down a deposit to “run their own business” in hopes of digging themselves out of a hole and maybe striking it rich by founding a ‘brand’?
No personal experience of that type of business, though I have had a couple of friends who fell prey to pyramid schemes.
I agree, there seem to be more of them than can possibly be profitable: how much volume of sales can there be?
My gf has bought several pairs of sunglasses at the airport in the winter. Each time we were there on our way to the Caribbean. She likes trying sunglasses on, so forget about Amazon. On the way to vacation she doesn’t mind dropping 200-300 dollars on sunglasses.
Does wearing sunglasses prevent or delay cataracts? I’ve never heard that, but it would be a good thing to know.
There are a lot of US cities that either roll up the carpet entirely at 5pm or at least the retail carpet, with only bars/restaurants/entertainment open at night. If taking public transit from the airport into the city you don’t have a lot of options to stop off, & I’m not sure I’d be willing to leave my stuff in a car service while I run into a store, either.
I had a work trip to FL with some cow-orkers. It was a rainy winter’s night when I headed to the airport so guess what I didn’t take?. The senior person rented the car & drove all of us to the suburban hotel but didn’t want to play sherpa for my errands. Luckily there was a Walmart close enough to the hotel to walk to.
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Sunglasses are considered a seasonal item here even though the sun is actually more intense in winter despite that cold & less daylight resulting in people needing sunglasses for less time. It can be a real b!+¢# finding a replacement pair in the winter if/when they break. Yes, I have spares in my house.
If the sunglasses are UV-blocking it reduces risk, yes.
A good part of it probably comes from people who simply forgot to pack sunglasses for their vacation. Even though it isn’t “summery” in northern Texas, I immediately noticed it was way sunnier than chicagoland has been over the last few weeks. I even commented to my uncle, “I never even thought about packing sunglasses.”
Interesting. December here in Sask is often gloomy, but the cold temps in January and February bring bright days (today was the brightest day in several weeks: blue skies, no clouds) and that, combined with the snow, would mean I want sunglasses if i’m driving on the highways.
answer to the OP:
a.) a product with extremely high margins (probably mid-to-high triple digits)
multiplied by
b.) the fact that it is a product that is not too niche, so there also is a good multiplier in it… (which converts a high percentage margin into a high dollar margin)
Virtually all sunglasses will block UV. It’s actually quite difficult to produce a pair that doesn’t substantially block UV.
Airport stores tend to carry products which are useful to travelers and which take up relatively little space for high values (it’s harder to deliver product to an airport so keeping shipments physically small is preferable).
Sunglasses tick both boxes.
I’m sure the margins are notably high.
But given that profit margin is defined as the net percentage of total revenue not offset by costs, it’s hard to see how this could exceed 100%.