Blacksheep, an online platform offering eyewear at extremely low prices, has opened a physical store in the center of Brussels. The price breaker also refers to itself as “the Shein of the eyewear market.”
Direct access to optical factories
Last fall, Blacksheep launched online with the ambition of disrupting the optical market. The brand claims to give consumers direct access to optical factories worldwide. Just as Uber did with taxis and Airbnb with hotels, the platform offers a new way of consuming: direct, transparent, and fair, says founder Pierre Wizman, an entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the optics sector: “For €2, you can get a good pair of glasses. For €7, you can get something better than Ray-Ban,” he says.
On Friday morning, Blacksheep opened a physical pop-up store in Brussels. In December, the brand also opened a store on Rue Rivoli in Paris. However, consumer organisation Testaankoop, which tested ten pairs of glasses in November, is skeptical about the offer: the frames are of poor quality, the lenses are not centered correctly, and the website itself is not consumer-friendly. The consumer organization therefore advises against buying glasses there.
