1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?

Arie Tom: OTTICA.com was created as part of Optimax Eyewear Group’s broader portfolio, building on years of experience across online eyewear retail, optical operations, prescription fulfillment, and direct-to-consumer growth. After helping reshape how consumers buy eyewear online through its brands, Optimax saw a clear opportunity to bring the same level of digital expertise, operational scale, and customer focus into the luxury eyewear market.

The idea behind OTTICA was not simply to launch another eyewear website. It was to create a dedicated luxury destination where customers can discover the world’s most iconic designer eyewear brands with the level of curation, service, and confidence they would expect from a premium in-store experience.

What makes OTTICA different is the combination of luxury brand access, optical expertise, and a more convenient customer journey. The platform features a carefully curated selection of leading designer eyewear brands, including Gucci, Prada, Tom Ford, Oliver Peoples, Dolce & Gabbana, and others, alongside tools like AR virtual try-on, a 45-day home try-on model, and complimentary high-quality prescription lenses assembled in the U.S.

In luxury eyewear, trust matters. Customers want to know they are choosing the right frame, getting the right lenses, and receiving the level of service that matches the product. OTTICA was built around that expectation.

2. Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?

Arie Tom: One of the most important decisions was positioning OTTICA as a curated luxury destination rather than a broad eyewear marketplace. In luxury, more choice is not always better. Customers want access to the right brands, the right styles, and a shopping environment that feels considered. That influenced everything from assortment strategy to site experience, creative direction, merchandising, and customer service.

The second key decision was building the experience around confidence. Buying luxury eyewear online requires customers to feel certain about fit, style, quality, and prescription accuracy. That is why features like virtual try-on, home try-on, and U.S.-assembled prescription lenses are central to the model. They are not just nice-to-have tools. They solve the real hesitation customers have when purchasing high-end eyewear online.

The lesson is that luxury e-commerce cannot rely only on convenience. It needs to create confidence. When you remove uncertainty without removing the feeling of discovery, you can build a stronger online luxury experience.

3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?

Arie Tom: Search is a major channel because luxury eyewear shoppers often arrive with intent. They may be looking for a specific designer, a certain frame shape, a seasonal trend, or a premium prescription eyewear solution. The key is to meet that intent with content and merchandising that feel elevated, not transactional.

Paid search and shopping are also important, especially for customers who are already comparing specific brands or styles. In luxury eyewear, the path to purchase can be very considered. Customers may return several times, compare frames, try them virtually, and evaluate whether a style fits their wardrobe and lifestyle. That means the experience has to stay consistent across every touchpoint.

Brand and content channels are becoming increasingly important for OTTICA as well. Luxury customers want context. They respond to strong visual storytelling, trend edits, expert curation, and editorial-style shopping experiences. The goal is not only to capture demand, but to build a destination people want to return to when they are thinking about luxury eyewear.

4. How are you thinking about search in 2026 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?

Arie Tom: Search is changing quickly, and luxury retail needs to adapt with it. We are no longer thinking only about traditional rankings. We are also thinking about how OTTICA is understood by AI-driven search, shopping assistants, and discovery platforms that summarize options for users.

For OTTICA, that means building content that is useful, specific, and credible. Luxury eyewear shoppers ask very real questions: which frame shape fits my face, what makes one designer style different from another, how do prescription lenses work with luxury frames, and what should I consider before investing in a premium pair. We want to be the source that answers those questions clearly.

We are also paying close attention to structured product data and how our catalog is read by search engines and AI systems. In a category where brand, style, fit, prescription options, and availability all matter, clean and machine-readable data becomes part of the customer experience.

The broader point is that discoverability is becoming more conversational. Customers may not start with a product page anymore. They may start with a question. Brands that answer those questions well will have an advantage.

5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?

Arie Tom: For OTTICA, retention starts with trust. A customer who buys luxury eyewear online needs to feel that the experience lived up to the promise from start to finish. That includes the way the product is presented, the accuracy of the prescription lenses, the quality of service, the packaging, and the support available if they have questions.

We also see a lot of value in curation after the first purchase. Luxury eyewear is personal, and once we understand a customer’s style preferences, brand interests, and optical needs, we can make the next experience more relevant. That might mean introducing them to new designer arrivals, seasonal edits, or complementary styles that fit the way they already shop.

Content also plays an important role. Customers do not always want to be sold to, but they do appreciate guidance. Editorial-style content, trend stories, styling ideas, and expert recommendations help keep OTTICA in the customer’s mind as a luxury eyewear destination, not just a place they visited once.

The advocacy piece comes naturally when the product feels personal. Eyewear is highly visible. When someone finds a frame that feels like “their” look, they talk about it, they wear it often, and it becomes part of their identity. Our job is to make that discovery process feel effortless and premium.

6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?

Arie Tom: I would double down on understanding your customer’s hesitation. Every e-commerce category has friction, but the strongest brands know exactly where customers pause and why. In luxury eyewear, hesitation can come from fit, prescription accuracy, authenticity, price, or simply not knowing whether a frame will feel right in real life. Once you understand that, product, content, service, and technology all become much sharper.

I would also double down on brand discipline. Not every growth tactic fits every brand. For a premium or luxury business, short-term conversion tactics can easily damage long-term perception if they are not handled carefully. You need to know what your brand should say yes to, and just as importantly, what it should avoid.

What I would stop doing is treating acquisition as the entire growth strategy. Paid media can bring people to the door, but the experience has to do the harder work.

Assortment, service, trust, content, and post-purchase care are what turn a first purchase into a lasting relationship.