And there’s the less wasteful version, “Wear the pair you like, and keep the others in the car/nightstand/where ever, in case the pair you like breaks and you need emergency glasses.” No way would I spend $400 for “just in case” glasses, but $30? Sure, why not?
‘Throw out the ones you don’t like’ is a bit of an exaggeration to drive home the point that if you don’t like them or they don’t fit properly and you don’t wear them, you’ll still come out ahead.
I’m starting to think that buying glasses online is the way to go.
I’ve been wearing glasses since high school (I’m 61 now). I can’t really function without them.
In the last decade or more, seems like optometrists and the businesses that either employ them or are owned by them exist only to aggressively sell really expensive frames and all kinds of “extras” for the lenses.
The chain stores flatly won’t sell you any frames that they don’t carry. They won’t get them for you. So that rules them out for me, since the frames I’ve been wearing since high school aren’t carried by the chains. They’re still made – these for clear glasses and these for sunglasses – but apparently they’re not in the distribution channel that the chains use.
Independent businesses owned by optometrists will order the frames, but their markup over what I can buy them for is astounding. So I buy them, and they’ll put the lenses in the frames, but they’ll whine and complain about it.
The last straw for me is that every indie business I’ve been to in the last few years has a sign up saying that any damage to frames that happens while frames are being adjusted is the customer’s responsibility. Adjustments are made at the customer’s risk.
That’s bullshit. Isn’t that what opticians do? They’re supposed to be able to fit frames to the customer’s face and head. Adjustments, at least for me, are necessary.
Next pair of glasses I buy will be purchased online (if I can find someone online who has the frames I like – I’m too old to change). I’ll go to an optometrist for the prescription, and I’ll insist that it be the complete prescription, including the pupillary distance (not sure if that’s what I mean, but there’s one thing they always want to leave off the prescription so that you can’t use it to buy online).
If complications come up during the exam, the optometrist can refer me to an ophthalmologist.
I’m pretty much done with buying glasses at brick-and-mortar establishments. In my experience, they simply have failed to grasp that what they need to provide in the internet age is expertise and service. I’d happily pay a premium for that. But they’re missing the boat when they try to make up for lost business by hustling me to buy Gucci frames or some bullshit like that.
How can glasses from Internet vendors be so cheap?
I think the better question is why are glasses from traditional vendors so expensive?
Because there’s a very, very small number of places that make them. Like two or three. With the market that cornered they can set the price however they’d like.
I think there was an article posted upthread.
Edit: Here’s the article, in post #2
Just thought I’d mention a somewhat creative use for Zenni glasses.
I just went to the eye doctor last week, and got an updated prescription. I decided to just get new lenses in my existing Moscot frames. I have old glasses, but they aren’t great backups because they are a couple of prescriptions out of date. (About 5 years ago, presbyopia set in, and my closeup eyesight has rapidly changed.)
Apparently, the lenses I get had to be ordered, and with the USPS cluster happening just before Christmas, they estimated I’d be without my current glasses for up to 4 weeks.
So, I had a dilemma about what to do for glasses for 4 weeks. I have an identical set of frames that have a “computer” prescription, so I had the optician pop out my current lenses, and figured I’d switch them when I got home.
When I got home though, I realized I didn’t want to be without my work glasses for a month, either, if it could be avoided. So, I gathered up about 8 pairs of Zenni reading glasses, and found the frames with the closest lens shape to the lenses of my current glasses, popped out the Zenni lenses, and squeezed the good lenses in.
There’s a sliver of a gap at the outside edge, but they work remarkably well. It helps that I tend to choose variations on one style of glasses.
I don’t know how long they’ll last – the lenses are slightly too tall, so they are stretching the frames in height very slightly. (Which, by the way, I’m sure my good frames would not do – these frames are much less sturdy, but that works for me in this case…).
I’m starting to suspect that with cheap online glasses sellers you get what you pay for.
10 days ago I ordered and paid for glasses at GlassesUSA. Today I get an email from them - so sorry, but those frames are out of stock, pick any other frames (just not the “premium” ones).
So they botched the order by selling me frames they didn’t have, took 10 days to tell me (the order should have been nearly ready for shipping by now), and don’t even give me full choice of replacement frames.
I countered by suggesting they make up for their screwup by giving me a sizable discount and expediting the order. I suspect this will end with a cancellation and refund.
Were the frames that you ordered premium frames?
Update: I have my third pair of glasses on order at Zenni. I also got a pair from EyeBuyDirect. So far I have gotten (prices are all-inclusive):
Distance glasses from Zenni: $34.85
Reading glasses from Zenni*: $33.85 (price includes clip-on sunglass lenses)
Polarized sunglasses from EyeBuyDirect: $88.83
Computer glasses from Zenni: $46.85 (slightly weaker reading glasses with blue blocker)
Total: $204.38
Quote from optometrist’s office for one pair of distance glasses: about $130.00.
So I got three pairs of glasses for less than one pair at the doc’s, plus the sunglasses.
The frame quality is every bit as good as the expensive frames. Zenni has an extensive collection of high-quality house frames. They do not offer name-brand frames. I believe they do manufacturing in China, and ship via San Francisco. It takes about three weeks from order to receipt. EyeBuyDirect has house frames, and also offers Oakley and Ray-Ban at much higher prices. I do not know where they manufacture but their delivery time is a lot faster, only about a week, and I placed my order Christmas week (12/18, delivered 12/26).
I am less able to judge the optics quality of the lenses, other than to say I see a whole lot better with them than without. The only problem I have noticed is a little bit of chromatic aberration far off the center axis for the reading glasses when I am looking a light source, like my phone. Based on my experience with camera glass I am guessing that this is a design compromise that would be expensive to eliminate.
*I have always used OTC reading glasses (3 for $18 at Costco) and thought they were good enough. But when I got reading glasses with my astigmatism prescription added the difference was remarkable and I will never use OTC glasses again.
I just got a pair of progressives with transition lenses from Zenni for about $100. I wanted to try out transition lenses without having them be my everyday glasses.
I also got an updated pair of readers for about $30.
The only issue was my usual one with Zenni: the frames I picked for the readers don’t look great on me. I’m pretty good now at judging that, and I knew these frames were a risk that way. I initially was going to use those frames for the progressives, but I realized they were on the risky side, so I switched. I don’t care that much if my reading glasses that I mostly just wear in bed are not the best fashion choice.
I also got new lenses in my expensive glasses from my eye doctor’s shop. They are definitely the best
.
I’ve never had Zenni tell me they couldn’t make my glasses because the frames were out of stock, but I have wanted to reorder a pair and discovered that they have “retired” the frames. That actually seems to happen fairly frequently with the frames I like.
I’m guessing that business is probably much higher than the norm, with so many people not able to shop in person, all around the globe. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that online sellers are having trouble keeping up.
Update to my less-than-wonderful experience posted earlier:
In almost the exact same amount of time it took GlassesUSA* after taking my order and money to inform me that oops, they didn’t have my frames in stock (10 days), I ordered and received a pair from EyeBuyDirect.
They appear well-made, with correct prescription and fit properly. I doubt it was the cheapest I could’ve gotten them (for one thing, I went for Ray-Bans rather than risking ultra-inexpensive frames), but I’m pleased with the outcome. Still miles cheaper than using one of the chain stores, with far fewer virions to boot.
*got a prompt refund for the unfulfilled order though.
I have a complicated rx: high refraction + serious astigmatism. Zenni has consistently made high quality lenses without any issues for me for over 10 years. Some of their frames though can be cheap or not great. I typically get 1.67 or 1.74 lenses from Zenni, both in sunglasses and plain, some with Blue Blockz. They have always worked out fine. Never tried their transition lenses, soc cannot speak for those.
Since the thread’s active again, coming back to this:
I went to my optometrist last week. There’s an optician in the same office; they work together. I generally get my glasses there; they adjust and repair them as/if needed. What I want in frames is primarily sturdy, and I’ve never had them try to sell me fancy. Nor have they ever complained when I wanted new lenses in the old frames.
Eye exam went well; no problems. Also no change in the prescription, which is unusual for me. I handed him my glasses and asked if they were scratched enough that I should get new lenses (I knew they weren’t badly scratched, but wasn’t sure if I was just so used to tiny ones that I didn’t notice them.) He looked them over and said no, I didn’t need anything new.
No hard sell whatsoever. No sell, as a matter of fact.
So while the brick-and-mortars you’ve dealt with may be awful: it isn’t all of them.
Undoubtedly true.
And I live in New York City, in one of the more expensive neighborhoods (Brooklyn Heights). And that means that sky-high real estate costs push any kind of retailer, including optometrist/optician shops, to really maximize revenue per square foot.
To be fair, I’ve never had an issue with the optometrist in my local independently-owned establishment. He (or she – there are two) have always given me a prescription that feels right. But when I then take that prescription to the optician part of the business (one of the two optometrists owns the whole business), then I run into upsell, reluctance to order the fairly inexpensive frames I’ve been wearing for literally decades, marking up those frames to a ridiculous degree, etc.
Other similar businesses, in other places, may not face the same kind of pressure.
I got a pair of sunglasses from EyeBuyDirect this year with my prescription. I got polarized lenses. The frames and prescription are fine but the polarization is really low quality. It is very uneven, and it is very evident when you look at a white tablet screen, which has polarized light. In a couple of spots, one eye will see the glare and the other will not, creating a kind of stereoscopic effect. I complained to the company and they are replacing them for shipping costs, but I suspect that this is a result of how they apply polarization and not a one-off defect.
They make fine glasses, there’s no doubt. All I was saying is that once you start adding bells and whistles, or you start getting into the more complicated prescriptions, then the prices rise pretty fast.
That might well be part of the issue. I’m in a rural area; and while the particular place is in a town that gets a lot of tourists, I expect they’re mostly dependent on local people who return repeatedly over the years – and who talk to each other.
Slightly off-topic, but I’m curious as to what people think.
I have a pair of prescription sunglasses, and they’re really nice. The opticians nailed the color-neutral tint, and they’re nice and dark (although it was a struggle to get them to put the lenses in my favorite inexpensive frames – see above).
They’re not polarized. Back when I was spending a lot of time on motorcycles, the thinking among my motorcyclist friends was that polarized sunglasses were not a good idea, because then you might not see a very thin film of oil, or ice, that was only visible because of the light reflecting off it.
So I got in the habit of not having my sunglasses polarized. And it’s just a habit – I’m not on a bike anymore, and the rare thin film of ice or oil is not nearly as much of an issue when you’ve got four much wider tires on the road than when you’ve got two, with much, much smaller contact patches.
Any thoughts?
I have a pair of several hundred dollar progressives that I leave in a hard shell glass case that I throw in a pocket.
What I actually use are dollar store readers.
If I’m actually just reading, and don’t care about looking attractive, the $1 readers are just better. No distortions, I can break them, and lose them (and do lose them, frequently).
The expensive ones are basically backups.