So I get new glasses & contacts this week
Can someone pls enlighten me as to why eye-wear frames are so expensive, esp the ones that are near duplicates of conventional Ray Ban sunglasses?
Why can I buy a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses with polarized lens (non-prescription) for $100
…but at the eye doctors, just the empty frames are $200? As are most empty frames?
I have both, Ray Ban non-presc ( for use with contacts in) and Ray Ban presc sunglasses…they look identical
Buy the sunglasses, take out the non Rx lenses. Take them to your optician and ask them to put Rx lenses in them.
Does that work? Have you done this?
It works. I had an old pair of Wayfarers lying around. Non-prescription. I don’t even know where they came from, but they were in a box of stuff in my house. I took them to my optometrist and had prescription lenses put it. No problem at all.
I’ve ben using this site with no complaints.
Frames are decent quality and entire pair of prescription glasses are a fraction of B&M eyeglasses store cost. You do require an accurate prescription as you will need to enter the correction variables. I got my prescription at Walmart for $ 55.00 and used it to order.
I’ve been using ZenniOptical.com. No complaints here. I love my $8 glasses.
I think glasses are so expensive because people use their leftover HSA funds to buy glasses. Every year in December people who have saved for a medical emergency using Health Savings Accounts have sometimes hundreds of dollars to spend or they lose the money. The only thing you can really use it all up on quickly is glasses or contacts. So people buy expensive designer frames. That keeps the price artificially high. I know I spent over $400 on a pair of Coach eyeglasses because my money would have vanished otherwise.
I’ve never used ZenniOptical.com, though I’ve been tempted. Are the glasses really just $8? Another one of those online glasses shop offered the first pair free but I couldn’t figure out how not to get the $30 lense upgrade, so I abandoned the purchase.
I love Zenni, yes some frames are that cheap! I’ve converted a few people since my discovery of them in October, and some of us now sport a few pair.
The answer to the OP, as trite as it sounds, really is “because they can.” For the large part, there’s one manufacturer that makes all the frames by all the name brands, owns retail outlets and some of the optometry stores, and has an eye insurance company. I learned this from a 60 Minutes segment, found here.
The online opticians interest me, but I like Smith’s Opticiansin my city. (Their own site is down as they retool to allow online ordering.)
They have a huge selection of vintage frames & also get assorted “current” styles. Like my violet John Lennon wire rims. Or the really good Rayban knockoffs. Or the steampunk shades…
Excellent prices, finished glasses within a few days–and they make them “fit.” Really, see if there are any little shops in your own city.
Just to pick nits… You don’t lose money you don’t use in an HSA (Health Savings Account). You DO lose leftover money in an FSA (Flexible Spending Account).
You don’t even have to take the non-Rx lenses out yourself. My eye doc did it for me and gave me the non-Rx lenses back in case I wanted to switch back at some point.
Frames are like anything else in fashion and quality. I have sold frames for $20 and I have sold frames for $400. That was 30 years ago.
60 Minutes had an interesting story about this a few months ago. The Italian company Luxottica controls a big chunk of the eyewear business. They own several brands as well as making the frames for other designer labels. They also own many eyeglass retailers (LensCrafters, PearleVision, Sunglass Hut). So they are able to keep prices artificially high by reducing competition.