Warby Parker Kind of Screwed Up Launch, Says Warby Parker

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Dave Gilboa, co-founder of eyewear e-tailer Warby Parker, talked about kind of screwing up the launch of Warby's home try-on option yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013. TechCrunch recaps:

"We launched with these features in GQ and Vogue, and within 48 hours we were stocked out of all our home try on inventory," says Gilboa. "We had a waitlist of 20,000 customers waiting for home try ons," he said. "We kind of freaked out and didn't know what to do."

Oops.

Gilboa also said the company had taken thousands of orders they couldn't fill before opening the wait list, and customers began phoning in, asking where they could go to try on frames. "So we said, well, the store's my apartment, but come on over. We had strangers from all over Philly [where Warby Parker was based at the time] coming into our apartment, where we laid out the glasses on the table."

Don't worry, though. Everything worked out fine for them.
· Warby Parker's Dave Gilboa On Selling Frames From His Apartment [TechCrunch]
· Is Warby Parker the Next Tory Burch? [Racked]
· Warby Parker Is Helping Google Design The Glass [Racked]