The marketing of professional service: Opticians
Christina Fulop and Kevin Warren
In less than a decade, a series of rapid and radical changes in legislation have led to structural and competitive changes in the market for eye care. In the short period between 1984-9 the ban on advertising was lifted; dispensing of spectacles for most people by unqualified and unregistered suppliers was permitted; National Health Service (NHS) spectacles were phased out; universal free sight testing was abolished; and the sale of simple, ready-made, non-prescription reading spectacles by unqualified vendors was legalized.
This article considers the effects of the...