After wearing contacts for close to 20 years, I broke down three years ago and bought my first pair of eyeglasses. I remember the experience well, because I hate heavy, large frames and ended up shelling out close to $350 dollars for the lightest, most minimalist eyeglasses I could find.
Last week, I nearly sat on them and crushed them; which got me to consider the idea of buying a replacement. My interest was piqued when a reader sent me a note and suggested that I check out inexpensive online eyeglass sites like zennioptical.com for a possible blog article.
And after doing a little research, I’m pretty impressed with the potential cost savings. In fact, some of them offer simple glasses for as low as $8. The sites that appear to do the most business include:
- Zenni Optical
- 39 Dollar Glasses.com
- eyeglass direct
- EyeBuyDirect
- Eyeglass Factory Outlet
- Optical 4 less
- Goggles4U
How do they keep their costs so low? Well, it’s due in part to the fact that they don’t mark up their frames and components by a factor of 5 or 10 like traditional brick and mortar stores; and in part by leveraging labor arbitrage: Optical 4 Less and Goggles4U are located in Hong Kong and Pakistan, respectively. And eyeglass direct is based in NY, but uses technicians from the Ukraine. In addition, they don’t have the high-rent or overhead associated with a retail location.
In order to take advantage of the steep discounts, however, you do have to have a bit of a “do it yourself” mentality, as you may need to take some basic measures with a ruler to help ensure you purchase the correct frames. In addition, you will need a current prescription from your optician. And when the glasses arrive, you may need to make some minor adjustments to ensure proper fit.
The space seems to be gaining some mainstream traction, as 39 Dollar Glasses was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and eyeglass direct was written up by Smart Money magazine. Given how picky I was when I purchased my first pair of glasses, I don’t think I’m ready to replace them; but for a pair of backup glasses, one of these online sites might be viable.
Thanks to the Amateur Economist for the article suggestion.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google