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Coastal Contacts to be acquired by Essilor for USD 392 million

Friday 7 March 2014 08:28 CET | News

Essilor, a French lens-manufacturing company, has revelead plans to acquire Coastal Contacts, a global online direct-to-consumer retailer of vision care products and services, for USD 392 million (CAD 430 million).

Coastal Contacts was founded by Roger Hardy in 2000 and has been an e-commerce player in North America. The company has also expanded to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Ecommerce makes up between 90 to 95% of the business, with shoppers able to try on glasses online by uploading images of their faces.

Ecommerce accounts for almost 10% of overall retail sales in the US, while in Canada, that figure is closer to 5%. However, experts predict the gap between the two countries will narrow until 2016 - 2017due to retailers’ price-matching guarantees and complementary shipping.
 


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Keywords: Essilor, Coastal Contracts, transaction, ecommerce, shipping company
Categories: Payments & Commerce
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Countries: World
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