Coastal Contacts Going from Virtual to Brick and Mortar

Coastal Contacts Inc., parent of ClearlyContacts.ca, plans to expand into the Toronto market, according to a company press release on the Wall Street Journal. The first store in Eastern Canada will open, Black Friday, the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving. The store will be located on Queen Street West, part of a well-known Toronto neighbourhood. Read more.

ClearlyContacts Opens Brick and Mortar Store Months after WP

Opening day at ClearlyContacts new store in Vancouver, BC.

"When Roger Hardy looks at the next big opportunity for Coastal Contacts Inc., the online eyewear retailer, he looks at real estate—physical stores with front doors, signs and cash registers, the sort of overhead that e-commerce once eschewed," reports Canada's Globe and Mail. "Coastal Contacts, which operates as ClearlyContacts.ca in Canada, opened its first domestic store—on Robson Street in Vancouver—earlier this year as little more than an experiment. It proved so successful that Hardy, the company’s founder and CEO, has now set his sights on opening one or two stores in every major retail centre across Canada." Read more.

What's Behind ClearlyContacts Success? Find Out

"Homegrown [Canadian grown] success ClearlyContacts.ca has been on a tear. The Vancouver-based online eyewear retailer Clearl," starts the story in the Financial Post. "The plan is to expand into the United States. 'As you grow, you need talent, but when we started looking we quickly realized there was no one here in Canada with the kind of experience we needed to disrupt the market in the U.S. in the way we have here,' Mr. Hardy says." Read more.