I wear glasses. I don’t think I’ve ever had to buy them myself though. The last time I got new glasses, my parents paid for them - no, I haven’t been leeching off my parents recently, it’s just that this was many years ago when I last needed new glasses and my parents still paid for much of my stuff.
Some things in life cost good money, if you want quality. I want quality if I’m using something a lot of the time. These things include: Beds, TVs, Autos, Glasses, Shoes.
I also have to get prescription sunglasses. My strategy now is to buy both pairs at the same time (Two-For-One sales), and take VERY SPECIAL CARE of them. I can get them to last two years, until the cycle starts again. My usual cost is in the $400s.
I’m not buying it. Hell, I just bought a 500 Gigabyte hard drive and it cost $80. Are you trying to tell me that eye glasses should be 5 to 10 times more expensive than a 500 GB hard drive?
No, there’s something wrong in the eye glass market, for sure. A pair of eye glass frames cost twice as much as a hard drive? The plastic lenses cost 3 times as much as a hard drive? Really?
No, I said nothing about that. I simply shared that I’m willing to pay more for certain things. Like being able to actually see.
I agree the markup is artificial. Not sure what that has to do with hard drives though.
Just randomly picked another item that is mass-produced for comparison.
It’s impossible to imagine that the frame for a pair of glasses costs more that a hard drive. Impossible. And like I said, an entire 40" HDTV costs about the same as a pair of glasses. :dubious:
I was an optician for 15 years. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been in the business, but I can tell you that ten years ago the average wholesale on middle of the road frames was higher than $80, and wholesale on multi focal lenses ranged from higher to way higher. I’ve also worked regular retail (JCPenney), and as a percentage the markup on dresses was easily 7-8 times the markup on prescription lenses or frames. And that doesn’t even account for the extra labor involved in fabricating spectacles.
If optical had really been a lucrative as people seem to think I could have retired years ago.
Then how are the internet glasses places selling complete sets for $10?
My uncle is an optician who used to have his own shop. The issue isn’t the retail markup; it’s the wholesale cartel.
I agree with the “wholesale cartel” folks.
I don’t accept the quality argument. In the world of optical devices, I can buy one of the finest lenses available for ordinary folks for my camera for the same $500:
That lens has eight different pieces of glass within and has fancy coatings and many different bits that are made to much finer tolerances than eyeglasses.
Differences (IMHO):
Camera lenses are all identical for one model, while eyeglasses are all different (to an extent)
Eyeglasses bridge fashion and jewelry, two areas with excessive markup
The aforementioned cartel
IMHO, the “all are different” argument is a bit weaker than it sounds. For many prescriptions, the lens is an off-the-shelf commodity, made in one round size that is then cut for the frames.
(btw, I like how the first comment to that video was “So much manual labor, no wonder it’s so expansive to make them, I thought some machine just does everything”–it takes about 5 minutes for the pair of glasses in the video and machines did almost everything. What was he expecting?)
Just this week I needed to get new glasses. JC Penney was advertising “2 Complete pairs for $99!” There was a limit of $100 per frames, and no-line bi-focals were included in the deal. I went in, found 2 pair of frames under $100 each and sat down with the nice fellow working there. I gave him my prescription and he fiddled with his computer a minute and came back with a bargain price of only $519. WTF. I fully expected to pay more than $99 but… WTF? When I inquired about the cost he said the $99 deal was for “basic plastic lenses” that weren’t as good as my current pair. When I told him I didn’t really need 2 pair, I just though the special was a good deal, he told me they also had a 50% off special on one pair and that would only cost me $325. Luckily, my insurance covers most of it, but still.
I had a job ca. 1971 making lenses in a small optical lab, so modify all prices I mention here by whatever inflation factor is reasonable. I certainly agree that retail prices are outrageous.
We made lenses to fit the supplied frames, which often came from the frame wholesaler behind the lab, which was also owned by the same optometrist, so figure that he triple-dipped in the operation. I don’t know what he charged his patients, but I suspect it was a hundred times his cost.
We billed the optometrist $1.70 per pair of single vision lenses (not bifocals). We added $1.00 for hardening (these were glass, not plastic lenses).
The billing included insertion of the lenses into the frames. Frames cost about $1.90 for plastic ones, but a few were in the $2-$3 range if they had some celebrity endorsement. “Groucho Marx says, ‘buy these!’” 
The lab bought the lens blanks from a wholesaler down the street for $.30 per pair if made in Japan. Equivalent ones were much more expensive if made in the US, so we rarely used those.
The machine that shaped the lens blanks into the shape to fit in the frames took 90 seconds, automated, to cut one lens with a diamond cutter, including a compound edge.
Metal frames were no more than $6, and the lenses were slightly more expensive, since they had to be made more accurately – the plastic frames could be expanded or shrunk to fit; the metal ones could not.
One oddity – our optometrist never could figure out the formula for lens prescriptions (there are two ways of specifying), and was constantly cursing when he looked thru the Bausch & Lomb refractor. I often had to help him with the formula, which was a simple sign change and number transposition, or 8th grade algebra.
He eventually fired me. I guess I knew too much.
We always paid about 200-400 dollars per pair. Last spring we found a price breaker. Called Eye Love. Operated from drugstores, with a little store- in- store, not optometrist stores. Both my husband and my dad went there. They both have fairly complicated prescriptions, but the glasses were nice and good quality. And cost 50 bucks, frame and glasses and finish included.
It can be done.
There are drastically reduced economies of scale involved in eyeglass lenses. Hard drives and TVs are so cheap because there’s a factory overseas producing millions of identical models. Eyeglasses are more customized, and therefore the price is higher.
What bothers me is that I can’t find any place that will sell me new lenses to put in my existing frames for a reasonable price. The local stores charge almost as much for a full pair of glasses as they do for just lenses. The cheap online glasses places such as Zenni only seem to only sell complete glasses as well. I don’t want to have to order a million frames online to try on and try to find one that I like. Why can’t they skip the frames and sell me lenses for the price they’re charging for frames & lenses? I already have several good frames that are being wasted.
- China
- They don’t have to give you any sort of optician service. No one is measuring or fitting you or walking you through different frames, nor do they have to maintain a storefront.
- No concern about designer frames and their premium or anything like that. I wish that was the same in the US, though - who cares about all that?
Well, depends on what you’re looking at, doesn’t it?
Over 20 years ago I bought two eyeglass frames made of titanium (mostly) and I’m still using one or the other daily (they alternate being primary and back-up glasses). Compare to the person who buys from Zenni whose frame break after a year or so. Add up the cost of Zenni frames over two decades and THEN compare to what I paid for my titanium frames that have not snapped ever.
As for the plastic lenses - prescription lenses have to be precisely designed and manufactured to exact refractive index, plus perhaps other features like prisms for astigmatism. Even if you start with standardized blanks you still have some customization for each one. That adds some cost over and above just the materials involved. I agree there is probably some “unnecessary” mark up (hey, lens makers deserve to make a living, too) but actual cost to make them is higher than just a clear piece of plastic.
I go to Smith’s Opticians–a local store. See the bare-bones website here. They have vintage frames, designer frames from previous seasons & a couple of lines of non-designer economical but pretty cool frames. They help you pick your frames, make the glasses within a week & adjust them. If the glasses ever need further adjustment, they will do it free. I’d bet they’ll refill existing frames.
My simple prescription comes to a couple hundred dollars. If you live in a big city, see if there’s a good local independent company…
Don’t know if it’s the same thing but they start at around $100 for two pairs in the UK, frames and lens together. Standard high street company. Can ou not order these online?
Ordering progressive lenses online is not a good idea. They need to accurately measure your pupil-to-pupil distance. Listen, my glasses are provided through my company’s insurance so I’m not frothing at the mouth over this. But surely eyeglasses are the most overpriced personal item ever. I’m not talking about frivolous jewellery. Without insurance, what the hell do people do? $400 to the uninsured means they’ll never get glasses.
There’s something rotten here.
These are the kinds of shenanigans that will be put to pasture with the advancement of 3D printing. Hang in there everybody, just a decade or two to go!