Walk into any eyeglass store and look around. Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada, Chanel, Versace, Burberry, Coach, Dolce & Gabbana - they all look like competing luxury brands, right? Wrong. They're all made by the same company you've probably never heard of: Luxottica.
This Italian corporation controls an estimated 80% of the global eyewear market. Not just some brands - nearly everything. And they don't want you to know about it.
Think you'll shop around for a better deal? LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, and Sears Optical are all owned by Luxottica too. You're not comparing prices between competitors - you're choosing which Luxottica store to visit.
It gets worse. Luxottica also owns EyeMed, the second-largest vision insurance company in America. So they make the glasses, sell the glasses, AND control the insurance that pays for the glasses. It's a complete vertical monopoly disguised as a free market.
Here's what really happens with those "designer" glasses: Chanel doesn't design their eyewear. Prada doesn't manufacture their frames. They send sketches to Luxottica for "inspiration," and Luxottica designs and produces everything in their own factories. The designer brand just licenses their name and logo.
A pair of frames costs about $4 to $15 to manufacture. They sell them for $200 to $800. That's a markup of up to 1,000%. E. Dean Butler, the founder of LensCrafters, admitted in a 2019 interview: "You can get amazingly good frames for $4 to $8. It's a complete rip-off."
How did one company achieve this level of control? Through ruthless business tactics. When Oakley refused to play by Luxottica's pricing rules in the early 2000s, Luxottica pulled all Oakley products from Sunglass Hut - which they owned. Oakley's stock immediately crashed 33%.
Then Luxottica bought the crippled company for $2.1 billion in 2007. It was a hostile takeover disguised as a business deal. Any competitor who doesn't cooperate gets the same treatment - lose access to the biggest retail chains, watch your stock tank, then get absorbed into the empire.
In 2018, Luxottica merged with Essilor, the world's largest lens manufacturer, to form EssilorLuxottica. Now they control both the frames AND the lenses. The $32 billion merger created an even more dominant monopoly.
Remember when Ray-Ban Wayfarers cost $30 in the 1980s? Now the exact same style costs $170. That's what happens when one company eliminates competition and controls the entire supply chain. There's no market pressure to lower prices, improve quality, or innovate.
The Federal Trade Commission investigated Luxottica's market dominance in 2004 and decided it wasn't a monopoly because it "only" controlled 20% of retail eyewear. But that calculation ignored their control over manufacturing, licensing, insurance, and premium brands.
So next time you're choosing between "different" eyeglass brands or shopping at "competing" stores, remember: it's all the same company, and they're charging you 1,000% markups while you believe you're making an independent choice.