Selling consultations on Amazon: Prize-winning strategy with social impact
Target customers are young to middle-aged adults who would buy the clinic visit as a gift for parents and grandparents.
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Selling consultations on Amazon may be an innovative strategy for reaching patients at an age when cataract develops, with benefits for both the clinic and families as a whole, according to Julien Buratto, co-founder and CEO of Neo-vision Cliniche Oculistiche in Milan, Italy.
This project, the winner of the ESCRS Practice Management and Development Innovation Award 2019 with almost 50% of the votes, was not primarily dictated by marketing objectives, but rather by social considerations.
“We wanted to encourage the younger family members to take care of their parents and grandparents, facilitating the access to eye care services for the many senior citizens who tend to neglect their eye care and vision problems,” Buratto said. “Our target customers are the young to middle-aged adults who are accustomed to using the internet for purchases online and can buy in this way a cataract consultation as a gift for their parents and grandparents.”
Under the name “Lights and Colors,” a cataract consultation package is purchased online and delivered to the recipient in a glittery orange envelope containing informative material, a card with the telephone number to call for deciding the date and time of the appointment, and a personalized gift message.
“What we want to communicate is ‘I give you a gift because I love you and really want to take care of you,’ which is much more meaningful than just picking up the phone and making an appointment on behalf of someone else,” Buratto said.
Demographic, economic and social changes in the Western world point toward an increasing involvement of grandparents in providing regular child care. Sociologists have coined the term “intensive grandparenting” for this phenomenon. In addition, due to the wider generational intervals, middle-aged individuals, particularly women, are “sandwiched” between taking care of teenage or still-dependent adult children and aging parents while continuing to work outside the home.
“We exploited the possibilities offered by the web to make the life of busy people easier. The whole process of booking, buying and paying for a consultation is smoothened up, with the added value of offering it as a gift, which is so much nicer and more encouraging than the usual ‘you must go and see a doctor.’ The whole perception changes,” Buratto said.
Amazon is a high-profile, reputable and reliable e-commerce marketplace, different from platforms such as Groupon, in which the attraction is the discount price.
“We sell the consultations at exactly the same price they have if you book them in the clinic. The advantage is not the cost; it is the way we organize and deliver the services,” Buratto said.
Future plans include eye exams for other age-related conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma. – by Michela Cimberle
- For more information:
- Julien Buratto can be reached at Neovision Holding SRL, Via Cartesio 2, 20124 Milan, Italy; email: julien.buratto@neovision.eu.
Disclosure: Buratto reports he is co-founder and CEO of Neovision Cliniche Oculistiche in Milan, Italy.