Does Blacksheep threaten opticians?

Wednesday November 5. That’s all we talk about anymore. The event is appearing on television channels, the editorial offices have sent their reporters to Paris: the Chinese ready-to-wear giant, Shein – known for its 2-euro t-shirts and 4-euro dresses – is arriving in France. The ultra-low cost platform, which is undermining French commerce, is setting up on the very upscale Rue de Rivoli and setting up shop at the BHV. A first in Europe.

While debates heat up in the National Assembly around the protection of French factories, another spearhead of “made in China” is patiently biding its time. Modeled on Shein, Blacksheep – “black sheep” in French – is an online sales platform specializing in prescription glasses.

On its site, the latest fashionable frames at unbeatable prices: 15 euros for a pair of corrective lenses and barely 10 euros more for progressive corrections. Riding on the example of Shein, the brand recently set up in Paris, a stone’s throw from the BHV, with an identical promise: to cut prices.

On closer inspection, Blacksheep is far from alone in this niche. A few clicks are enough to see that other Chinese platforms, like Firmoo or Eyewearglobo, are already flooding social networks with a very aggressive commercial strategy. Nothing really new: fifteen years ago, French industrialists were already trying the adventure.

The founder of Meetic, Marc Simoncini, assured that he could halve the optical bill before giving it up. In 2014, Xavier Niel, the creator of Free, launched Lunettes pour tous with more lasting success.

But this is China. And everyone has clearly seen this with Shein: when this type of industry sets in motion, with its striking power and its excessive logistics, everything is swept away. Will French opticians go out of business?

Intermediaries ousted

“The new players are banking on the Uberization of the market,” analyzes Hugues Verdier-Davioud, president of the National Federation of Opticians of France. The principle is simple: eliminate intermediaries to bring prices down. Uber did it with taxis, like Airbnb before it and then Deliveroo in their respective sectors. The optics follow the same logic with Blacksheep.

Examples that its founder, Pierre Wizman, cites without batting an eyelid. A whimsical entrepreneur and self-confident braggart, expatriate for twenty years in Hong Kong and “fascinated by Chinese industrial power”, he dreams of himself as a modern Robin Hood. The forty-year-old is not his first attempt since in 2011, he launched Polette, a similar concept of low-cost glasses.

Defender of the consumer “too often taken for a pigeon”, he considers it “absurd” to pay “500 euros for a piece of plastic and two polished glasses” and prophesies: “In twenty years, opticians will no longer exist” and everyone will buy their glasses on the Internet.

In Hauts-de-Seine, on the sidewalks of the town of Antony, mothers and retired couples crowd into the optical stores in the city center. Camille came with her presbyopic daughter who needs a new frame. “Like everyone else”, the nurse “heard about” these inexpensive glasses, intrigued but hesitant.

However, she has not yet taken the plunge, even if she is not very far from it. “Twenty years ago, no one would imagine buying clothing online without trying it on. Now everyone does it. »

Michel, bravado, would also like to “give it a try”. All he would have to do is ask his grandson how to “make the site work on his cell phone”. It must be said that Michel no longer really “finds his way” in the maze of mutual societies, opticians and health insurance, at the heart of the French reimbursement system. Too complicated. Too opaque. “It all seems a bit nebulous to me. At each visit, I have the feeling that they want to add options to me, like at the dealership. And in the end, I always feel like I’m paying too much. »

Worried opticians

“I understand that the consumer is wondering,” replies Éric Plat, general manager of Atol, one of the heavyweights in the sector – 465 million euros in turnover in 2024 and an advertising slogan that has entered popular culture. It details the mechanics of the sector. To put it simply: of the 16 million glasses prescribed each year (according to professionals in the sector), a complete chain is put in place, in which the optician is only the last link.

Before him, a frame manufacturer, a lens manufacturer, then the purchasing centers… At each stage, a margin, and a total average price around 420 euros. Nothing illegitimate, he assures. But the margins remain difficult to know, and vary from 6 to 25 euros depending on the intermediaries and their role in the chain. (read infographic at the end of the article). The more the selling price of glasses increases, the more the margins follow.

The sector is profitable. After an exceptional post-Covid rebound, it is now supported by stabilized growth of around 1% per year: if the first prices bring in little, the high end, sometimes more than 1,200 euros, compensates. The industry is spinning, but that doesn’t erase the worry: “After clothing or taxis, we’re all scared of being next on the list…” confides an optician.

In 2002, who would have predicted that Free would implode the telecoms market? And in 2010, would Airbnb shake up the hotel industry? For thirty years, China has conquered the West thanks to its industrial power: steel, automobiles, clothing… If Beijing decides, eyewear could follow. Teleconsultation, online appointment booking… digitalization in the health sector makes the scenario even more likely.

Further up the production chain, France is still holding on. In Wissous (Essonne), very close to Antony, a factory stands as a symbol of what the country still knows how to produce best. Inaugurated in May 2025 by Emmanuel Macron, this laboratory of excellence, lost in the heart of a vast industrial wasteland, is the showcase of the Franco-Italian group EssilorLuxottica. The world leader wants to equip three million French people by the end of the year thanks to this site.

Ultra-automated, strategically installed in the Paris region, the factory can deliver glasses in twenty-four hours. A guarantee of “reliability, speed and traceability: a real quality service”, says Prûne Marre, general manager for France. Contrary to this excellence, the platforms ship glasses for 15 euros every day, without real control. Two models, two speeds, but the same market.

European rules evaded

Will Chinese glasses be as good quality? This is the question that Camille, the mother, asked herself after taking a look at the Blacksheep website. The composition of a large part of the products is not indicated. And since the site opened in June 2025, testimonies mentioning rapid deterioration and manufacturing defects have multiplied.

“We have already seen the effects of these 15 euro products for a long time. As they are not adapted, particularly to the morphology, more or less serious pathologies appear, especially in people combining several vision problems,” worries independent optician Agnès Tallemet. This is where the time spent with the optician proves valuable.

The situation, however, is far from simple to control. To escape their responsibilities, many actors take shelter behind a legal status which protects them. Blacksheep actually functions like a marketplace: a simple interface between sellers and customers, which bypasses a large part of European rules.

“With marketplaces, it’s: ‘We’re not responsible for anything and we’re making money from everything,'” warns LR MP Antoine Vermorel-Marques, co-rapporteur of an information mission on controls on products imported into France. The responsibility lies with the manufacturers, he says. A very practical process, especially since these producers are often difficult to trace and sometimes ephemeral. Companies appear, disappear then are reborn under other names.

Antoine Vermorel-Marques estimates that today 80% of small packages coming from China are non-compliant. Below 150 euros, they escape customs duties and the obligation of control, so much so that only 0.1% of packages are today examined by the French authorities.

This wave actually poses “a simple question”, according to Agnès Tallemet: “What model of glasses do we want? » A market supervised by health professionals or a low-cost jungle? For Antoine Vermorel-Marques, the answer is clear: the MP voted, as part of the examination of the 2026 finance law, in favor of taxing each imported item up to two euros.

Innovation, lifeline

But political power has not always worked in favor of “made in France”. Independent opticians and large brands agree: the “100% health” social reform, desired by Emmanuel Macron in 2019 and aimed at offering glasses from 95 euros fully reimbursed by mutual insurance companies and Health Insurance, has pushed French opticians into the arms of Chinese manufacturers.

“Currently, no one in France can produce a pair for 95 euros. It’s impossible! » recalls Agnès Tallemet. She, who worked almost exclusively with French or European manufacturers, had to resolve to turn to China to offer one of the seventeen compulsory pairs that each optician must make available. At Atol, the share of frames made in France is now struggling to exceed 60%, compared to 72% before the reform.

Certainly, today, online sales represent barely 2% of the market, according to indiscretions shared by opticians and manufacturers in the sector. But the arrival of new players imposes a traditional challenge: facing platforms that transform a medical device into an ultra-consumer product – an object that you can change according to your outfit or because you forgot your pair on vacation.

France could, however, stand out thanks to innovation. Driven by advances in artificial intelligence, eyewear is experiencing a spectacular leap in technological progress. Lexilens lenses, developed by the French start-up Abeye, now allow dyslexic children to read better – unthinkable a few years ago.

Essilor, for its part, created the Stellest lens: not only does it correct myopia, but it slows its progression thanks to more than a thousand microlenses distributed over eleven rings which slow down the lengthening of the eye. A field of possibilities that fascinates Michel, under the Christmas lights in Antony: “I would probably be too old to see it. But knowing that my grandchildren will benefit from it, it exhilarates me. »