Yaacov Halperin, CEO of Israeli optician chain Optica Halperin, plans to expand the chain’s US operations beyond Brooklyn and open 15 new branches, starting with Queens and later on moving to Los Angeles. In an interview with Israel’s leading financial daily Globes, he says that he is unconcerned about the difficulties of management from a distance and about glasses brand saturation in the US. He says: “There are more Jews in the US than in Israel, and even if we saturate the Jewish market we’ll have opened a second Israel. We conducted a survey that found that eight of ten US Jews knew that the Halperin brand was related to glasses.”Halperin confirmed that Jews are his target market, adding that the company advertises exclusively in Jewish media.
While aware that competition is tough, he believes that his company has a decisive edge with Israelis in the US: “When you buy pharmaceutical products, you prefer to speak in Hebrew, and everyone speaks Hebrew. There are a lot of Israelis there, and we’re currently consolidating our position among them.”
{Globes/Israel21C/Matzav.com Newscenter}
There are more Jews in the US than in Israel…”
Not true. As of a few years ago, there are more Jews living in Israel than in any other country, including the United States.