From Bondi Markets to retail juggernaut: How Bailey Nelson brought a human touch to the eyewear industry

Setting up a stall in the early morning light, arranging your products to entice customers walking by, hours spent hoping to make a sale. It’s a scenario familiar to the many Australian entrepreneurs that start their businesses selling at markets. And it is one Bailey Nelson co-founder Nick Perry remembers fondly. 

When Perry and business partner Peter Winkle first started selling fashionable glasses frames at the Bondi Market 10 years ago, they were aiming big; they knew the retail eyewear market was ripe for disruption, and they were armed with experience at The Iconic and Booz and Company (Perry) and McKinsey (Winkle).

But the pair may not have imagined their optometry and retail business would one day span 100 stores across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK, employ approximately 900 staff, and have annual turnover in the ballpark of $100 million. 

That revenue has grown by 28% year-on-year compared to last financial year, says Perry, and the company has doubled its store footprint in Canada to 35 since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Eyewear is of course a health purchase for many people, and the mass shift to remote work and Zoom meetings reinforced this. 

This growth shows no signs of slowing either; Bailey Nelson is aiming to double the size of the business within the next three years through a combination of opening new stores and achieving higher volume through existing stores. The Canadian market in particular has been earmarked for significant growth. 

Bailey Nelson co-founders Nick Perry and Peter Winkle. Source: supplied

“We have an incredible group of people who work for us and we have a business model that’s working,” said Perry. 

SmartCompany Plus spoke to Perry days before the 100th Bailey Nelson store was due to open in Frankston, Victoria.

In a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to launch and grow a retail brand over the span of a decade, it became clear the answer to that question is very simple: people. 

Key takeaways

1. Customer service matters, whether you’re selling from a market stall or leading a global team of hundreds of people

2. Your mid-level managers can be a secret weapon

3. If you have the right values, they will grow as your business grows

Finding experts

In his classic business book, Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that you need “the right people on the bus” to build a successful business, and Perry says attracting talent to Bailey Nelson has been a fundamental driver of the company’s success to date. 

At different times through the course of the company’s growth, key people have quite simply “changed the trajectory” of the business, he says. 

In some respects, this started with the partnership between Perry and Winkle, who each invested $40,000 to launch the eyewear brand, along with $30,000 from their parents.  

There was risk involved — but it was considered risk. Drawing on his experience at The Iconic, Perry could see how the direct-to-consumer retail market was changing, thanks to the likes of Zara and Uniqlo, and how retailers were thriving with fresh product ranges that were updated frequently and priced fairly.

Similarly, the pair researched online models for eyewear retail in Europe and the US, and identified a gap in the market for something similar here. 

“We’d been told that if you find a bad experience, chances are there’s other people that have got a bad experience and there could be a business opportunity there,” said Perry.

Selling their first range of 20 glasses frames at the Bondi markets was far from “glamorous”, Perry recalls, but those early days speaking directly to customers solidified the brand’s key values of offering fashionable eyewear choices, at an affordable price, sold by people who are passionate about what they are selling. 

Before long the business hired its first staff — some of whom are still employed by the company 10 years later — and moved from the market stall to pop-up shops in the Sydney CBD. 

The concept behind Bailey Nelson has evolved since then, and so too has its retail infrastructure (the fitout for the retailer’s first store cost $2000 and Perry recalls debating whether they should spend another $300 for a sign out the front), but the emphasis on quality customer service has been a constant throughout. 

The addition of Melbourne-based optometrist Lawrence Jacobson to the business in 2013 epitomises these efforts to put customers at the heart of the business, explains Perry. 

Jacobson was operating his own independent optometry business at the time and suggested to Perry and Winkle they should incorporate optometry into their business model, in order to create a much “stickier” end-to-end customer relationship. The idea was the business could then become “the custodian for the health of your customers”, Perry explains. 

The pair partnered with Jacobson to put his equipment into one of their stores and according to Perry, the improvement to customer experience was immediate. Now, all Bailey Nelson stores have optometry services and Jacobson is eyecare director for the brand. 

Working with experienced investors and board members has also had a lasting impact on the development of the Bailey Nelson DNA, says Perry.

This includes Delaney Schweitzer, a former executive at lululemon athletica in Canada, who Perry describes as an “extraordinarily inspiring woman who has really guided our thinking in terms of how to connect people to your brand to create a strong culture, that then lowers your staff turnover”. 

People matters

The word ‘joy’ may not be one that many people associate with the task of buying a new pair of glasses, but Perry uses the word often when describing the atmosphere, service and culture found within Bailey Nelson stores. 

In part this is tied to the lower price point of the products, compared to the brand’s larger competitors. Bailey Nelson’s frames and standard single vision lenses start from $145, and Perry describes this realisation about price as a moment of joy for customers, but also for the staff selling the products.

The fact customers can access their optometry needs, as well as make a retail purchase, with the same brand also fosters that customer journey. 

The sense of having a positive impact on a customer’s life becomes a recruitment tool, Perry suggests. 

“We want people to self-select because they believe in what the business is trying to do, which is to bring joy to eyecare,” he said. 

And from a management perspective, there is a sense of empowering the leaders within the business too, especially at the store management level, which influences the morale at each store level. 

Perry gives the example of Sarah, one of the Bailey Nelson area managers in Alberta, Canada. Sarah started with the business opening one store in Edmonton, a city where no-one had heard of Bailey Nelson, but now oversees 10 stores and hasn’t lost a store manager since the pandemic started – an “extraordinary achievement”, the co-founder says. 

“She treats her store managers like business owners … and she is one of those inspiring leaders that people don’t want to leave,” he added. 

Perry is clear that this culture, this focus on people, is Bailey Nelson’s competitive advantage.

“People can copy our frames, our designs, our pricing. They can’t recreate the culture of the teams we have in our stores.”  

Advice to other entrepreneurs

As Perry reflects on Bailey Nelson’s 10 years in business, he says understanding that growing a business is a journey is essential, and it helps to have a business partner standing by your side.

It’s hard work, he says, and you will be working seven days a week.

You will meet people along the way who will offer advice and there’s plenty of books and articles to draw inspiration from, but you must get the fundamentals right.

“The term is product-market-fit, but it’s making sure that there is a demand for your product, and then getting there as inexpensively as possible,” he said. 

It’s why spending the $110 dollars to hold a stall at the Bondi markets back in the early days was worth it, he says, as those conversations with customers gave Perry and Winkle the knowledge they needed to build a brand. 

The trick, he adds, is to always keep those customers in mind. 

“As the business scales, really stay close to your customers and work so you don’t lose touch with the business,” he said.