Buying Eyeglasses Online

We've all heard about "sticker shock" at the car dealership and the Apple store. What about "sticker shock" at the optical shop? Anyone who wears glasses with corrective lenses is familiar with the concept. For most of the visually challenged among us, buying prescription eyeglasses is a necessary but cumbersome and even humiliating ritual performed on an annual or biennial basis. You leave your eye doctor's office, prescription in hand, with vague hopes that, this time, you will end up with a stylish set of eyeglasses frames, frames that do not make you look like an accountant who belongs to a knitting circle.

Still hoping against hope, you venture down to Lenscrafters or Pearle Vision or any one of a number of optical chains or independent optician's shops. The "sell job" begins as soon as you walk in the door. The walls are lined with row after dizzying row of frames, so many that the hapless consumer instantly abandons all pretense of being able to pick the "right one" without the help of that forceful salesperson-er, optician-who magically appears at your side ready to offer suggestions. You submit yourself totally to his power. After all, one is usually at a disadvantage when choosing glasses frames. Often, the patient comes directly from the doctor's office with recently dilated pupils and is trying on frames without benefit of her current pair of glasses. Yes, you say, meekly, I could use some advice.

The optician then brings out a series of progressively more expensive frames, pointing out the indisputable merits of each. We're all familiar with the sell job: These cat's eye frames soften the lines of your oblong face. This pink color contrasts nicely with the cool undertones of your skin. Finally, it's time to choose. A strong-willed customer will pass over the $400 Dior frames and go for the plain metal-rimmed style that is on sale for $99. Whew! You may actually get out of here without spending a month's salary. You sigh in relief.

But the hard sell has not yet begun. Now you must choose lenses for your frames. You are told that you absolutely must choose the thinnest, highest indexed plastic available in order to avoid glare, distortion, and the stereotypical "coke bottle lens" look. Then the optician tuts and tsks over the scratches in the lenses your old pair of glasses which are folded in a shabby heap next to your paperwork. You must, absolutely must get an anti-scratch coating. Do you work much at the computer? Do you drive? Yes? Then you absolutely must get the anti-glare coating. And there is no question about the anti-UV coating. You wouldn't want that radiation destroying your eyes, would you?

Nervously, you watch as the optician tallies up the costs of the lenses, the high-quality plastic, and the various absolutely necessary coatings. You somehow find the strength to refuse the suggestion to "go for" the tinted lenses that will darken every time you go outside and lighten when you come in. You will definitely come back for sunglasses in a few months, you promise hastily. Still, though you deny yourself the marvelous tinting, your total cost runs into the several hundreds of dollars. Reluctantly, you hand over you credit card. Ruefully, you sign the receipt.

"How did this happen," you wonder. But, in the end, you're resigned. This is what glasses cost, you tell yourself. Glasses are a highly specialized technical "vision device." Making them requires great expertise and expensive materials. There's nothing you can do about it.

But the startling truth is that glasses don't and shouldn't cost you that much. The mark-up on frames and lenses in optical shops often runs several hundred times the actual costs of the materials used to make your glasses. Why? You're not just paying for you frames and lenses. You're paying for store overhead, salaries, and astounding profits being raked in by an industry that has a captive consumer base. After all, you buy glasses because you need them. You have to see, right? So the optical industry has you "over a barrel." You almost have to pay whatever they demand. Otherwise, you might not be able to read, drive, work or do many of the other daily tasks that require good eyesight. Luckily for the near-sighted, far-sighted, and astigmatic among us, there is another way. The internet has come along to even the playing field between you, the blind-as-a-bat consumer, and the glasses purveyors.

In recent years, a number of online retailers have begun selling prescription eyeglasses over the internet. These online optical shops offer stylish frames, even some designer frames, outfitted with the same lens materials and coatings that are pushed on you so aggressively by their off-line predecessors. But they offer it all at a steeply discounted price. If you shop for your glasses online, you can end up paying as little as 10 to 15 percent of what you would pay at your bricks-and-mortar optical shop.

At first, buying glasses online may seem impractical. Don't they do all that measuring, after all? Actually, choosing frames is a fairly simple process that the optical industry has purposefully mystified. First, you need your eyeglasses prescription. If you get your eyes examined at an establishment that also sells glasses frames, your doctor may resist giving you your prescription when it becomes clear that you would rather buy your glasses elsewhere. But, legally, your doctor cannot refuse to give you your prescription. State firmly that you won't be leaving the office without it.

Once you have your prescription, the only other piece of information your really need is your papillary distance. Your optician measures this with a ruler. If you can read a ruler, you can take this measurement as well. "Pupillary distance" is the term for the distance between the mid-point of your left pupil to the mid-point of your right pupil. This measurement is almost always rendered in millimeters, so you will need to use a ruler with a metric scale. If your eye doctor is cooperative, you can ask him to measure it for you when you get your routine eye exam. Otherwise, you can measure it yourself by standing in front of a mirror and holding a ruler in front of your eyes, from pupil to pupil, or have a friend measure it for you. For adults, papillary distance generally falls between 54 and 68 millimeters.

Then, all that remains is some internet browsing and, finally, selection of your frames and lenses. Online retailers offer a wide variety of eyeglasses frames, of all styles and materials, and you will find that one of the best part of shopping for glasses online is being able to do so at your leisure without an optician breathing down your neck.

As with any other kind of retailer, some online optical shops have great reputations and others do not. So do your research. A good place to start is the Glassy Eyes blog at http://glassyeyes.blogspot.com/. Glassy Eyes is the brainchild of Ira Mitchell who, after tiring of being robbed by Lenscrafters, found excellent online alternatives and made it his mission to let other glasses-wearers know what he had learned. The site includes reviews of all the major sites, a forum in which online glasses afficiandos share their experiences, good and bad, and frequent discounts especially for Glassy Eyes readers.

Perhaps the two top online eyeglasses retailers are EyeBuyDirect at www.eyebuydirect.com and 39DollarGlasses at www.39dollarglasses.com. At both sites, it is possible to pick up a pair of frames with lenses, including all the requisite coatings, for under $50, although prices will be higher if you choose certain frame styles and specialized features. Other big players in the online glasses movement are Zenni Optical, Optical4Less, and Goggles4U.

You'll be amazed at how much more fun it is to wear glasses once you can buy three, four, or more pair for what you would normally spend on one pair at a chain optical store. You can choose different styles to suit different moods, different occasions, different settings, and different outings. You can wear a conservative, rimless pair to work and a funky, rhinestone studded pair to the club on the weekend. You can buy those bold green plastic framed glasses that you love but that you would usually pass over for fear they would clash with half your wardrobe. Finally, glasses can serve as something other than a purely utilitarian, medical and prosthetic device. They can also serve as a fashion accessory, an expression of your personality and your freedom of choice.