Sell My Opticians Business

Target healthcare buyers to maximise value for your optical practice

How to sell an optical business

If you’re considering putting up your opticians practice for sale, carefully planning your exit strategy helps you deal with any stumbling blocks along the way, and achieve the best possible price.    

The sector experiences significant challenges that can affect a sale, so what are some of the issues you may need to address and how does an optician business sale proceed?

Challenges when putting up your optician practice for sale

Highly competitive retail element

Opticians typically rely on product sales rather than the healthcare service they provide to make a profit. On the commercial side, however, it’s extremely challenging for an independent optician business to compete with larger high street chains that are able to make economies of scale and benefit from wider brand recognition.

Finding a point of differentiation

Differentiating from the competition can be difficult in this sector. Adopting new technologies to deliver the streamlined and personalised service that customers demand, involves investment in new systems and processes - a challenge for those opticians businesses with limited capital or cash flows.

Public perception

It can be difficult to manage public perception of optician businesses as commercial outlets rather than first-line healthcare venues, especially as opticians commonly rely on the commercial element of their businesses to make their profit.

How to value an opticians business?

If you’re wondering what your opticians business is worth, our in-house and highly experienced valuation team can determine the value of your business, assisting you in the process of determining a guide sale price for your independent optometrist business or franchise-led optical clinic. Valuing an opticians business requires careful analysis into current liabilities and assets to generate accurate monetary value and deter any risk of underestimation or overestimation.

Value my opticians business

If you’re interested in selling your business in the optometry sector, the Selling My Business team can offer a valuation service, outmatching business transfer agents in the same arena. It’s common practice to take a basic, surface approach by simply analysing the profit and loss accounts, however, the SMB team will take a focused approach into investigating overheads and the gross profit margin to value your business. To kick start your opticians valuation and determine the worth of your business, we require 3 years’ worth of historic/recent accounts.

Use our specialist knowledge for your opticians valuation and business sale

Selling a business is a complex process, and it’s advisable to obtain professional help from the outset. Our team at Selling My Business has specialist experience of helping people place their optical practice for sale, and will help to ensure a smooth transaction.

We can help you throughout the planning and sales process in various ways, including establishing how much your business is worth, the potential exit routes, ensuring your business is as attractive as possible to potential buyers, and identifying prospective purchasers.

We’ll consider the factors that differentiate you from your competitors so these become a factor in negotiations and can be promoted in sales material, but also determine any aspects that could negatively influence the price paid – onerous contracts, for example, or legacy systems.

Selling an optician practice

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is a key issue in a business sale, which is why a non-disclosure agreement is typically sent out to interested parties prior to them receiving information about your business.

Sensitive information including sales figures and forecasts is released to trade buyers and other parties who show an interest in the sale, plus an explanation of why you’re selling. In fact, the reason why you want to sell is one of the first elements to identify when making an exit plan, as it determines other steps such as the required speed of sale.

 

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• Previous sales and acquisitions experience
• Sector specialisms and average success rate
• Sales value expectations and growth potential

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10 Key Questions to Consider Before Appointing an Advisor

Our Essential Checklist to Selling your Business

Do you want to remain separate from negotiations?

Some business owners prefer to remain ‘in the background’ during initial contact and negotiations with prospective purchasers, and don’t speak to interested parties first hand. This is just one area where business sales brokers such as ourselves, with specialist sector experience, can provide invaluable assistance. We’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of your wishes and goals, and undertake negotiations on your behalf if necessary.

These are just two areas of consideration when selling an optician practice – for more information and advice tailored to your own business, please contact one of the team at Selling My Business. Our extensive experience of selling businesses in this sector means we can help you quickly move forward, taking into account any potential pitfalls or challenges.