Agreeing with the rest - I have to see them on my face. It’s not necessarily about fit, though, it’s about how they’ll look with my facial features. I really like this style, and when I’m shopping I’ll think “oh neat! Those will go great with my hair/eyes/skin tone!” and then I put them on and they don’t look right. That, and my prescription is strong enough that it looks awkward with certain frames.
Zenni optical is decent. However I have run into some problems.
When I bought my first pair, I didn’t research the frames enough and when I got them I found out they were too small for my head. So I spent about $14 on glasses I never use. It was cheaper to keep them as a backup pair then to send them back.
So I bought a different pair with a wider frames, spring hinges and larger eye pieces for about $20 and am happy with them. I had to take my lenscrafters glasses and draw an outline of them on a piece of paper to find out the ideal lens and frame width since my old lenscrafters pair fit me well.
However after a year the arm broke, and I had to have it repaired at an eyeglass repair shop. That cost me $26, so the repair cost more than the glasses themselves.
I have an old pair from lenscrafters that has lasted me almost 6 years w/o problem, but the Zenni pair broke after 1 year. However, considering how cheap they are its not really a huge problem and I got them repaired.
So overall I’m happy.
This would be awesome for spare glasses. Next paycheck, I’m going to look a lot more closely.
Clothes are not glasses. I don’t wear one pair of clothes every day of my life. If a shirt is a bit too big or too small, it may not be a problem, but if the fit of my glasses isn’t just right it’s painful.
My head is slightly asymmetrical, and I wear bifocals. There’s no way to get a good fit without trying on just about ever frame made.
Buying glasses online is awesome. I found a pair on Zenni that are the best glasses I ever wore - big lenses like I prefer without being giant old man glasses, flexible “memory metal” stuff that’s really light and comfortable, semi-rimmed with polished edges that look nice. I had my eye doctor take a look at the glasses with his lensometer and he said the optics were perfect.
Price? $8.95. Seriously.
I did have one worse experience - I originally ordered glasses from 39dollarglasses.com, and when the frames came to me they were slightly bent. Not a big deal, I had them adjusted at a retail glasses store. But then I noticed I could never quite see correctly out of my right eye. My theory on this: they noticed the lenses weren’t quite correctly made, the astigmatism correction was off. So they bent the glasses so that the lens angle was changed and it would pass their quality control test, but when I got the glasses straightened out, the lens was misaligned. That’s when I ended up ordering the other pair from Zenni. To be fair, a sales rep offered to e-mail me a pre-paid postage label I could print out and they’d let me send in the glasses and check them out - but by that time, I had received my Zenni glasses and I loved them so I just didn’t bother.
I did break the original glasses I got from Zenni… and their replacement pair… they both lasted around 6 months. I don’t think it was a quality control issue so much that the nose bridge on the memory metal on those frames is very thin and easy to break. Oh well - for $8.95 a pop, I can tolerate them breaking every 6 months. I ended up ordering 3 or 4 pairs of those glasses just so I’d be covered for a while in case they stopped stocking those frames. I also ordered different glasses from them to see if I liked the different styles better, and I also got some sunglasses - my most expensive pair was $20 or so, IIRC, and all of them were very high quality. I now have 5 or 6 pairs of perfectly good glasses laying around the house and I’ve spent maybe $80 on it.
I’m thinking of grabbing a pair of transitions lenses, since I have really light sensitive eyes and going outside here in Vegas can leave me blind for the greater part of a minute, and I don’t like carrying sunglasses everywhere I go. Getting those lenses costs something like $30-50 extra per pair online, which is way cheaper than retail.
Edit: One piece of advice. Their anti-reflective coating treatment costs $5, but it’s one of the early primitive anti-reflective coatings that doesn’t do a great job and makes the glasses tend to get smudged and dirty easier. Unless they’ve changed it, give it a pass.
Maybe it shouldn’t be, but for me it can be. I’ve had problems when I simply replace the lenses in a pair of frames I’ve been using for years (well, OK, that was a flaw in the manufacturing process, but it’s happened more than once and sending stuff back is a pain, at the optometrist’s office I just come back when they have the fixed lenses)
I wear my glasses from the moment I wake up until the time I go to sleep. I even wear them in the shower because if I drop the soap I can’t find it without my glasses. Also can’t see the taps to control the water temp without my glasses. Can’t find the washcloth without my glasses. (Obviously, I take them off to wash my face, but that’s pretty quick). I am very dependent on these things I wear 16-18 hours a day, every day. Having a pair of glasses that are just a little off is very much a serious problem for me. Not to mention if the style looks bad, well, that really sucks for a job interview, doesn’t it?
Why would I need more than 1 back up pair of glasses?
Also - if anything I need charity, I simply can’t afford to buy stuff to give away.
Because, as mentioned above, even when simply replacing the lenses and re-using old frames I have had problems.
A tiny bit off gives me eyestrain and makes me sad. Yeah, it’s a big deal to me. Your mileage may vary.
Also, the FAA is kinda annal about not wanting me to use corrective lenses that are a “little bit off”, they want my vision corrected as much as possible. So, I care and the FAA cares. Granted, I’m not flying at the moment due to financial reasons but I’m hoping to do so again at some point in the future.
I have never lost a pair of glasses. Well, maybe it’s because they’re on my face all the time. I’m not someone who is taking them off and on all day.
I buy online books, film, TV and music all the time.
However for glasses I prefer to have a fitting in my opticians rather than take any risk online.
People lose glasses?
Oh, to have that luxury. My glasses go on the nightstand at night… in the exact same spot every time, so that my blind-ass self can find them in the morning. Then they stay on my face until I go to sleep that night, and place them on the nightstand once more.
Not to mention that having my glasses break isn’t just an inconvenience the way it seems to be for some folks upthread… in my case, it’s downright hazardous. I can barely see two feet in front of me, which means I’d need to hold someone’s arm all the way home lest I get run over or fall flat on my face. I need to know my frames are tough enough to stand up to being worn 16 hours a day for 2 or more years, and if it means paying $100 more to get the real deal instead of a cheap internet substitute, I’m totally fine with that.
But they’re not “cheap internet subsitutes” - they’re made of the same materials by factories that make the stuff. It’s the same lens material, the same types of metal, etc.
I tried it but I couldn’t find any brand-name frames I liked on the major websites, so I couldn’t go try them on in person somewhere.
Well, obviously your severe vision problems coupled with your career/hobby choice dictate that you have to spend a little more money on quality lenses. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But for someone who needs minor enough correction (for me, I can see fine without glasses, my eyes just are slightly off from one another so the focusing causes me strain-- so, I wear glasses so my eyes don’t hurt) and isn’t going to possibly crash an aircraft and kill a bunch of people due to them cheaping out on glasses, I’d say Zenni is a fabulous option. Obviously, if you have SEVERE eye problems and need some highly specialized, calibrated lens, this probably isn’t for you.
And I lose my glasses because I don’t wear them all the time, since I can see well enough without them.
Obviously this is going to be such a common issue for most people who would read this thread that people should provide disclaimers saying their arguments don’t work for pilots.
: cough :
The difference in quality is minor with the Zenni Optical ones. Hell, the only glasses I’ve ever had break on me cost $190.00 for the frames alone. The other advantage to them is that at a cost of $20.00 for the whole thing, you can get a few different pairs so you can always have a backup. I have two extras floating around the house. I tend to alternate between glasses based on my mood and which pair are the most convenient.
A tip for those of you who buy them at a bricks and mortar store, you can haggle the price down of the lenses considerably. I discovered this by accident. I bought the frames, and got a quote for lenses from the salesguy. He quoted me $200.00. I said thanks, but I’ll get them done on vacation for much less. He asked me how much it would cost. I told him $90.00 and he said they could do it for that amount.
Truthfully, there is a noticeable difference between the Zenni glasses I got and my awfully expensive Versace ones- things just don’t feel as. . . tight? But, there is no difference at all between the Zenni ones and the glasses I paid $200 for at Walmart.
You can buy replacement frames from Zenni for half off of what they would cost for the full glasses. Unless you have rimless glasses or some complex design, it’s pretty easy to replace the lenses. I have had good experiences with them in the past, except when USPS sent back a tool they sent me for no apparent reason.
I guess it’s just a difference in priority, because that would royally piss me off. I’m the kind of person who just wants shit to work without me having to fool with it all the damn time. Having to take the time and energy to have my glasses repaired or replaced twice a year is just right out, as is the repair being a big process of printing out a label, finding a box, packing 'em up, taking 'em to get shipped, and waiting for a week or so. I’ve been wearing glasses for over 20 years and only one pair has ever broken–the rimless ones I had last time. The nose pad came unsoldered, which they fixed for me in about 5 minutes free of charge when I dropped in the store, and then after five years the nose piece broke irreparably. Dealing with those incidents was annoying enough.
Yes … I have to try them on before I know how they will look on me. It takes me a looooong time to find frames I’m happy with. I wear mine from the time I leave the house until I go to bed, they are a permanent fixture, so having something that suits my face is very important. And, as others have said (repeatedly) just because the stated measurements on two frames are the same doesn’t mean they are actually the same. Besides that, I’ve never had a finished pair of glasses I just plopped on my face and walked out of the store. There are ALWAYS minute adjustments to be made in about 50 different directions before they are properly seated on my face and the focal point is in the right spot. If not, then they are not only awkwardly uncomfortable but will give me a severe headache within the hour. The last pair of glasses I bought, I sat with the technician a good 15 or 20 minutes for the fitting, and THEN had to come back a couple of times over the next few weeks for fine-tuning. There is NO WAY I would buy a pair of glasses mail order and then have no way to have them adjusted.
You asked why someone would buy glasses at a much higher price from a brick-and-mortar store rather than online at a deep discount. Multiple people have chimed in with essentially the same set of reasons to answer you (and DiosaBellissima). If these answers don’t satisfy you, I’m sorry, but continuing to argue with us about it isn’t going to magically resolve our issues with buying glasses sight unseen.
I’ve been wearing glasses for about 25 years now, ranging the full gamut from wire frames to carbon composite to coloured plastic… and the only time I’ve had a pair actually break on me was the result of a dodgeball to the face. All the others were replaced because I outgrew the prescription, and never because the frame wore out.
Given that track record, you’ll have to forgive if I’m a little doubtful that the quality is the same if the internet frames when they have a demonstrated tendency to break within 6 months of purchase. I can chalk up the first pair as a dud, but two in a row? That usually means crappy overall quality in the product itself.
It’s a quirk of the design rather than the manufacture. The nose bridge is too small for aesthetic reasons, and I tend to manhandle my glasses. The actual material they’re made of is the same memory metal titanium that any other frames manufacturer uses. I’ve broken many pairs of glasses I bought from a retail optical shop too.