Owner - Franchisee - Anonymous employee Pearle Vision Employee Review

If you aren't an experienced Optician or O.D., just say NO! The sales team gives you this amazing presentation and tells you how GREAT you are and how you're the "future of Pearle" and then after you sign up, leaves you in the dirt. Our experience has been awful and the lack of proper training is egregious. They can build you a fantastic store but then you are on your own. Ask about financial reporting systems, Monthly COGS, insurance percentage of business, insurance reimbursements, avg percentage of write offs from retail sales for insurance, how you can reconcile your invoices to your monthly statement (hint: you can't),etc. Get into the minutiae! Otherwise you will be screwed. This is not the franchise for the weak or optically inexperienced. We bought into this asking all the right questions (so we thought), doing our "due diligence" (so we thought), and researching thoroughly (so we thought). Now we're in debt to the tune of $600k and are damned well going to get through this on our own. Just don't expect anything from Pearle Vision after you give them their $30k-$46k franchise/design fees. Read and understand every, single word in the contract before you sign. Ask them to summarize your investment on a microscopic level - both as initial investment as well as ongoing monthly basis. Don't assume ANYTHING! Luxottica is absolutely awful.