Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-why-are-eyeglasses-so-expensive-20190122-story.html

by joelkesler • 4 years ago

375 316 4 years ago

quantified• 4 years ago

It's wonderful for them. Everyone who has eyesight really wants to see clearly. After air, food, water, eyesight is kinda crucial.

Maybe we should tithe them in thanks for not making it way more expensive.

nullish_signal• 4 years ago

Should we tithe Industrial Zones for not dumping more chem waste? Tip our wait staff for not spitting in our food?

yarg3• 4 years ago

Clearly not (and you're replying to a sarcastic comment).

mhuffman• 4 years ago

Tip our wait staff for not spitting in our food?

I know people that worked in the industry and mention up-front they are good tippers to the servers ... just in case!

rahimnathwani4• 4 years ago

"Warby Parker recognized this as a business opportunity. I’m surprised others haven’t jumped in as well with reasonably priced eyewear."

This author is uninformed. Others have jumped in. And Warby Parker wasn't even the first.

15 years ago I would buy my single-vision prescription glasses from optical4less.com. The cost was $58 for 2 pairs, including worldwide shipping.

Today I buy my glasses from Zenni. Last month, I paid $176.75 total for two pairs of glasses, each with single-vision photochromic lenses (and one pair with additional blue light blocking).

MichaelZuo5• 4 years ago

I've heard a lot of the cheaper places cutback on the fancy multi-layer coatings, so that the quality of lens is not equivalent.

I know a lot of them advertise identical quality but did you ever confirm that to be the case?

rahimnathwani4• 4 years ago

  I've heard ...

Heard from whom?

  I know a lot of them advertise identical quality
  but did you ever confirm that to be the case?

You can choose what types of lenses you want. Zenni, for example, offers multiple lens options, some of which are from specific brands.

https://www.zennioptical.com/glasses-lenses

When you buy glasses from a bricks and mortar optician, you're getting whatever bog-standard lenses they sell, unless they specifically mention they're high index, or have some specific feature/coating, or are from some specific manufacturer.

Just like when you buy glasses online.

There are definitely differences in lens quality, but the available range is just as wide in retail stores as it is online.

bagels3• 4 years ago

I can personally attest to this. Warby Parker lenses delaminated quickly. Measured in weeks.

newyankee3• 4 years ago

You know, my family member bought a pair of cheap glasses for 2 $ in India. Granted it was probably not very powerful or may last long. But I am shocked at the definition of what is cheap. I am now skeptical if the glasses he bought actually work well enough for him.

rahimnathwani4• 4 years ago

$2 is extremely cheap.

Sure, it's enough to pay for the materials (frames cost pennies, and cheap lenses maybe $1?).

But someone still has to cut the the lenses to size, and fit them to the frame. This requires both equipment and skill.

I don't think I've ever paid less than $15-$20 for prescription single-vision glasses. I've paid more even in the 'wholesale' optical market in Beijing.

$2 is easily achievable for reading glasses, which are mass produced with lenses installed at the factory.

asicsp2• 4 years ago

Probably mass-produced?

Glass lenses cost me Rs 1000 (about $12.5) a few months back (myopia, -5) - I'd say these were on the cheaper side, and no special coating (they cost as much as the lenses themselves!!). Frames on the cheaper end also cost around this much.

Symbiote• 4 years ago

You can buy "reading glasses" from a supermarket in Britain for $4.

They might be OK, but custom lenses will almost certainly be better.

(Also, glasses ordered online in Britain start at less than $10 a pair. Once something purchased that infrequently costs less than a McDonald's meal, there's not much pressure to further reduce the price. It's one hour work at the legal minimum wage.)

CorrectHorseBat• 4 years ago

$2 is cheap, but the best glasses I've ever bought start at $6, up to $30 for all the filters, so I'm not surprised you can buy something useful for $2.

schwartzworld• 4 years ago

Zenni Optical has $6 glasses, but if you want scratch resistant lenses the price goes up to almost $11.

regular2• 4 years ago

Warby Parker is a rip-off too.

ngokevin2• 4 years ago

Yup, Zenni is like 20 years old. My partner worked there for 7 years on the eyewear supply chain and catalog. There are tons and tons of low-cost eyewear startups like payneglasses.com

KatieLN5• 4 years ago

Agreed! I love Payne. I have over 100 pair because it's so inexpensive to buy online. Why not have multiple pair? You can get sunglasses or computer glasses, so you're not just stuck with one pair.

mindslight• 4 years ago

Uh, they aren't. You go to Zenni Optical and it's a solved problem. You basically choose what you want to pay. Their $7 glasses work great. My every days were $25, until I decided to try out their UV blocking lenses, which bumped them to $50. My prescription sunglasses and prescription safety goggles were each $80.

If you've got a stronger prescription or need more than single vision lenses you'll pay a bit more. But nothing compared to the many hundreds by the time you walk out of an optician. Reasonable pricing completely changes the dynamic from bundling every what-if into a single pair, to one of why-not try something new - the way markets are supposed to work. Maybe next time I'll even try auto-darkening lenses, despite having had a lackluster experience with them decades ago.

Ctrl-F Zenni in the article show no results though. I know there are even some competitors by now, but the ones I've seen are still trying to gouge a bit.

KatieLN5• 4 years ago

Try Payneglasses.com. They're cheaper than zenni. Also, they're way easier to deal with if you need to exchange/return.

turtlebits• 4 years ago

Zenni glasses are 7$ and perfectly fine (I ordered a test set, which I now use as a spare)

My current set from them is a high index lens and anti glare, which were only $30 shipped. They’re going on 3 years now and still look new.

bityard• 4 years ago

Same reason medical care is so expensive in the US: Insurance and the art of the upsell. The provider gets to charge high prices because the bulk of the cost is covered by insurance and thus "hidden" from consumers. The insurance company gets a non-trivial cut of the pie, which pads the bill further. And in my experience, when you go in with something wrong with you, most doctors will recommend (or perform without asking) tests that aren't covered by insurance and you don't find that out until the bill arrives in the mail.

I have a pretty standard vision insurance plan and need glasses roughly every two years. (Two pairs: one for indoors, and sunglasses for outdoors and driving.) I go into an optometrist office and get my vision checked. $10 copay or whatever for the exam. Then the pain starts. The frame selection is terrible and it turns out that the only decent-looking frames and lenses cost 3-4x what insurance will cover. And insurance doesn't cover more-or-less "required" add-ons to lenses like anti-glare coatings. And the person selling you the glasses is _very_ good at convincing you that you need all the extras.

I did the math one time and I paid $200 per year for vision insurance to save $190 (including the cost of the exam) on one pair of glasses.

The last time I bought glasses, I took my (recent) prescription to an online eyelasses e-tailer website and purchased a pair that included all the fancy extras for $60 out the door. I don't _love_ them, but I can certainly live with them for the price.

olliej5• 4 years ago

I would suggest checking out other optometrists, most have a much better insurance wall than they had a couple of decades ago. Or go online (to order, not suggesting an eye exam over webcam :D ).

That said, I'm currently getting cataracts removed and IOL implants and insurance is like "correcting your astigmatism isn't needed so we won't cover the IOL that does that, just your distance vision". If correcting my vision isn't necessary then why cover any IOL at all??? :-/

epmaybe4• 4 years ago

This gets into the weeds a little but the reason boils down to money and tradition, and “what is needed” is a shifting goalpost for society.

Just thirty years ago you may have never even gotten an IOL due to tradition or cost. After adoption in the developed world there was a huge push to prevent lower income countries from accessing the technology because they “didn’t need” that technology and could benefit from lower cost interventions such as glasses.

So as companies started to innovate and lower cost, single vision non toric IOLs became cheap enough for insurance to cover. Then to make some money on premium lenses companies (and ophthalmologists, sadly) really started to push torics and multifocal lenses.

The fact of the matter is that few patients benefit all that much from toric lenses that fix astigmatism. Most people have less than 1 diopter of astigmatic error, which they don’t even manufacture a toric lens for at any usable tolerance (the FDA allows a +/-0.50D tolerance to all lenses including torics), and surgical modifications can nullify that to some extent. Veterans get it free at most VA hospitals though, so they probably get more implanted than the average population.

In the next fifteen years though I bet Medicare will begin to cover toric lenses, and the rest of the insurance industry will follow. The surgery doesn’t change much between toric and non toric. The Multifocal IOLs will remain “premium” for a while to come I expect.

akira2501• 4 years ago

It's healthcare monopolies, from supply to distribution, it's all wrapped up pretty tightly. There's also one large payer that covers most of the market already.

Zero people have effective choices in this system. So.. prices go up.

yarg3• 4 years ago

Boycott Luxottica.

Anyway, reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpKWHSsBpnE; glasses with user adjustable lenses.

Removes the need to customise the product to the individual, and the need to see an optometrist - it reduces the cost of the product and makes 'prescription' glasses a viable option even in nations without adequate medical services.

Saigonauticon• 4 years ago

Interestingly, a pair of glasses here in Vietnam -- including eye exam, fancy lenses (high refractive index, anti-glare etc.), and frame -- usually runs in the 20-40$ range. As with most things here, you can find cheaper if you need (e.g. secondhand).

I'm not certain, but it sure feels like the inflated cost in North America makes it seem like eyeglasses are less affordable here than they actually are, at least in the cities.

The kicker is when I fly to North America and I see the same frames being sold there!

Edit: Eyeglasses are one of the things I recommend colleagues buy here while visiting. It's conceivable some (from nearby countries) save more than the cost of their trip!

int_19h4• 4 years ago

You can get eyeglasses for $40 in US, from online stores like Zenni.

bagels3• 4 years ago

I tried Warby Parker. The lenses delaminated in a few weeks both times (my experiment confirmed that the first one was not a fluke).

I'd love to eliminate the cost and hassle of visiting an optometrist when the current prescription is working just fine.

dzhiurgis2• 4 years ago

Boycott zenni as they ignore Taiwan

bluGill4• 4 years ago

Got a better suggestion?

olliej5• 4 years ago

I thought it was fairly well established that optometrists make most of their income from the sale of the frames as they have little to no control over how much they get for the examination, and the lens price determined by the lens manufacturer. The frames are the only thing that the optometrists get any significant margin on.

The moment you aren't buying the frame from the optometrist office the price craters, and has been that way for at least a couple of decades at this point.

mixmastamyk2• 4 years ago

Don't forget the lens and underbody coatings.

olliej5• 4 years ago

I literally stated that they don’t have significant control over the lens prices. Every optometrist is getting their lens from a relatively minor set of manufacturers, and the manufacturers price to maximize their revenue, not the optometrist.

Now I’m sure that they make a bit more money in an absolute sense from coatings, but nothing like the full $8 or whatever it costs these days.

The biggest markup items they have are the frames, as there are many different manufacturers the frame manufacturers do have to offer margins to the places that sell them.

stjohnswarts2• 4 years ago

don't buy your glasses from your optometrist, buy it from online sources. Most states require them to provide you with your prescription after an eye examination. I get mine for roughly 1/4-1/3 (I could probably get them cheaper if I wasn't sticking with a vendor that has been great for me) the price online and they're fine.

dang• 4 years ago

Discussed at the time:

Why are glasses so expensive? The eyewear industry prefers to keep that blurry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18980191 - Jan 2019 (588 comments)

Ask HN: Recommend sunglasses made in the west and independent of Luxotica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28029206 - Aug 2021 (35 comments)

Making My Own Glasses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21156637 - Oct 2019 (187 comments)

How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19312499 - March 2019 (301 comments)

The spectacular power of Big Lens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061380 - May 2018 (43 comments)

The One Product You Should Buy Online: Eyeglasses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16040924 - Dec 2017 (97 comments)

Vision Insurance Is Making Glasses More Expensive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736573 - Nov 2017 (86 comments)

A Closer Look at the $13B Premium Eyewear Market - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15429826 - Oct 2017 (135 comments)

One Dollar Glasses – Help for 150M people - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13091936 - Dec 2016 (114 comments)

Why are glasses so expensive? (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9183464 - March 2015 (113 comments)

Sticker shock: Why are glasses so expensive? [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6718224 - Nov 2013 (48 comments)

petilon2• 4 years ago

Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything.

You go to LensCrafters and prices seem super expensive, so you go to Pearle Vision and that's expensive too, so you go to Target Optical and prices are still high and then you think maybe glasses are expensive, since you went to multiple stores and they all have similar prices. What you don't realize is that all those retail brands are owned by the same company - Luxottica [1]. They operate under several names, so there is an appearance of competition but there isn't.

But wait, it isn't just stores, they also own eyewear brands such as Ray-Ban, Chanel, Coach, Oakley, Prada, Tiffany, and so on. Yes, all of those brands are owned by Luxottica [2].

Wait, not done yet. They also own insurance. Luxottica owns the vision insurance company EyeMed. [3]

Still not done. Luxottica has merged with Essilor and now own multiple lens brands [4].

See 60 Minutes story on Luxottica if you're not outraged yet [5].

Where are the anti-trust enforcers in this country and other countries, and why are they not doing anything?

[1] https://www.luxottica.com/en/retail-brands

[2] https://www.luxottica.com/en/eyewear-brands

[3] https://eyemed.com/en-us/about-us

[4] https://www.essilorluxottica.com/brands

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDdq2rIqAlM

planetsprite• 4 years ago

Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? I don't imagine the barriers to entry are too high for manufacturing glasses, are they?

selcuka2• 4 years ago

Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition?

They can and they do [1]. They just don't have the same marketing budget, so you don't hear as much about them.

[1] https://www.zennioptical.com/

petilon2• 4 years ago

If you manufacture glasses, how are you going to get it into the hands of consumers? Luxottica owns the retail stores and the insurance company.

ska• 4 years ago

It's probably higher than appears at first blush, at least to do at scale. But not a huge barrier.

But there isn't an open market for manufactured lenses, you have to get them into consumers hands, and you have to get prescriptions, and people want fitting and ability to try frames.

Superficially it seems that glasses are highly vertical in practice, which is why budget outfits like zenni and warby parker seem mostly to be focused on the margins of direct-to-consumer.

csomar• 4 years ago

There are two markets: The cheap, and the "brand". You either buy a "cheap" one for $10 and get a lens for it; or you go for a "brand" name like RayBan (which is Luxottica).

I started buying cheap 4 years ago, and surprisingly the frame is still doing well (brand frames usually last 2-3 years)

Someone1234• 4 years ago

Your employer may offer pre-tax vision insurance, this vision insurance is run by Luxottica, and works exclusively at their retail locations and brands.

Sometimes employers will even pay part of the vision insurance premium, thus making it, so your choices are to leave that money on the table OR pay completely out of pocket post-tax dollars.

There are alternative ways to use pretax dollars on eyeware, but many people aren't familiar with them and they require some management.

fshbbdssbbgdd• 4 years ago

Because the people who can measure which glasses you need are in on it.

Aunche• 4 years ago

I'm guessing that part of is that they have a very tight relationship with insurance. Insurance covers Luxottica much more than the budget brands, so for me personally, it's actually a similar price if I choose a frame that's on sale. I tried a pair of Zennis, but they honestly felt super low-quality compared to my other glasses, even though I got all the upgrades.

jwr2• 4 years ago

Not for manufacturing, but you need good designs first, something people will want to buy. And most people will want to buy something with a BIG BRAND NAME on it.

I tried buying glasses online and discovered another problem: the industry hasn't standardized on measurements. It's very difficult to buy frames online. The numbers/measurements will be, for example, for lens width and nose bridge width only — go figure how large the entire frame is. I tried, and failed, accepting that I pretty much need to visit a store.

bagels3• 4 years ago

Yeah, it's interesting. People get outraged about tech monopolies... but something we spend hundreds of dollars each year on, that's just fine.

int_19h4• 4 years ago

People get outraged about things that they know about. (Most) tech monopolies don't attempt to hide behind many different brands.

imroot• 4 years ago

I worked on the retail IT side of things at Luxottica.

I don't even think that you've scratched the surface of just how prevalent Luxottica is: you've touched the retail side of things, but, you also haven't touched the manufacturing side of things (Lux has patents on the hinges used in glasses), the wholesaling side of things (Lux supplies generic and branded frames to your local optician on less-than-preferred terms), and then just the genetic beast that is their optimization efforts.

I discovered some ineffective linux and db management that was adding 15-30 minutes of closing time every night -- time where we'd have employees on the clock waiting to close the store -- and figured out why it was behaving the way that it was and fixed it so the 'point of sales' part of closing wouldn't be the hold up. Saved the company almost 13 million dollars a year in labor costs and 45 million in licensing costs when I came up with a way to replace the POS systems OS without needing a cross-ship of new hardware...and still got screwed around when it came to my hourly rate increased or getting my contract renewed...

When my girlfriend's son passed away from complications with cancer, I had flowers and cards sent from some former coworkers, but, not a single person even reached out to me until a few months later, where they asked me if I was 'ready to go back to work' after cutting my contract.

It was well known that if someone robbed a Sunglass hut, the most expensive item in the store to replace was the iPad...

kinleyd• 4 years ago

Wow, that's a powerful and damning assessment.

chasil• 4 years ago

Glasses aren't that expensive.

I buy them from https://zennioptical.com

I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again.

The sunglasses that we buy in a drugstore can be had for paltry sums, why not prescription eyewear?

marvin• 4 years ago

Huh. That's interesting. I've wondered for over fifteen years why the parts of glasses appear to be so incredibly similar between brands, never really having stumbled across any quality stuff that's markedly different.

rolenthedeep• 4 years ago

My fiance did store tech support, and holy SHIT I cannot believe that place manages to function day to day. There was some weird system that support staff had to RDP into, but the server was set to Spanish. Instead of, I dunno, fixing the language, all the support staff were given a document with translations of everything they need to use.

There was another HR system that support staff again had to RDP into to change passwords or personnel details or something. But it was so horribly misconfigured that there was a delay of minutes between keypress on the staff's client and response from the server. This task routinely took half an hour to update a few text fields.

Also yeah, they totally fucked him on hours and pay. The real big problem was the constant verbal harassment from store employees who are angry about systemic IT issues that have gone unresolved for years. One store has their internet drop out every single weekend. There's a ticket that's been open for years with hundreds of notes because the manager calls every weekend to report it.

nnoitra• 4 years ago

This comment slowly escalated to the point where I thought the next line would be: "They also own your eyes".

wyclif6• 4 years ago

Check out Shuron. USA-made and not owned by Luxottica. Superior quality zyl frames and five-barrel hinges, unlike almost everything Luxottica sells. And they are full service and have top-notch customer service—they'll fill your prescription and also send you five different frames to try on and return:

https://shop.shuron.com/

odysseus• 4 years ago

I wanted to like these, but these are some ugly frames compared to some of Lux's Italian-made frames. Same deal with a lot of discount frames (including some from Luxottica) - very old styling and cheap looking materials. But to each his own - I'm sure some people will like Shuron and maybe I'm not up on the latest trends.

bombolo• 4 years ago

italian made? lol… china made

wingworks• 4 years ago

It's a pretty long list of sub-brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EssilorLuxottica#Brands

hourago• 4 years ago

Capitalism stops working when monopolies take over markets.

It is urgently needed to break up all the monopolies and go back to healthy competition.

Many problems that we see in society today come from power accumulation in a few hands. The economy is becoming an authoritarian power.

Kill monopolies and growth will come back in full force. People is not out of ideas, it is just that companies do not care anymore because they have their market share assured.

robertlagrant3• 4 years ago

The economy is becoming an authoritarian power.

Well, no. Monopolising a market with the economy, which is a tiny fraction of all decision-making power, is not authoritarian.

The main thing to ask is: are there high barriers to entry for new players? If not, then competition will arise when it needs to. If there are, then we have a problem. If there are, and they're government/state regulations, then we have a common problem :)

beeboop• 4 years ago

Capitalism stops working when monopolies take over markets.

It is an inherit property of capitalism that it works towards this goal. There are forms of capitalism that exert more regulatory influence to help prevent this, but the way capitalism works is that it constantly tries to erode regulation and trend towards monopolies. We see this constantly and nonstop in real life.

tistoon• 4 years ago

Wow you just described Canada in every industry sectors! It’s the same. That’s why Canada is overpriced everywhere (telecom, banks, groceries, etc): no competition.

londons_explore3• 4 years ago

They grew big by buying every startup eye brand.

Anyone want to start a little low-cost, low-quality glasses manufacturing company, with the aim of being bought by Luxottica and closed down?

ohgodplsno2• 4 years ago

Leica (makers of lenses for cameras and phones) is moving in the market. They have the knowledge and the tools to make it, but they are still very small compared to Luxottica.

rich_sasha• 4 years ago

While it's good news and fun for photography nerds, I don't associate Leica with price-based competition.

ranguna• 4 years ago

Take a trip to an EU country and buy some glasses. Do your research beforehand though, not all stores are cheap either. Most of the cost is on the frame usually, so if you go with a cheap frame, there's a high chance the glasses will be cheap, unless your lenses have some crazy requirements that is.

I got sunglasses and "normal" glasses for 100€ both, not each, both. And they do not use premade lenses.

I still use the sunglasses to this day but I broke the normal glasses due to my own stupidity after 3 years or so. Then I decided to try a different store and payed 300€ just for normal glasses. I will never go there again, they are not any better then the ones I broke before but are waaay more expensive.

andirk2• 4 years ago

Is there some way to make this comment a billboard?

The lenses are manufactured per individual according to their need. Granted it's within a spectrum of choices such as it's -1.5 or -2, not -1.66421 (right?). Then one can add features to the lenses like anti-glare, anti-scratch, spectrum, blue light filter. Insurance covers 100%, and it's not a lot. But the frames?? They're very, very small amounts of metal and mass produced. What a sham. But yeah I do buy them at Lens Crafters after my optometrist appointment for the convenience.

someweirdperson2• 4 years ago

Granted it's within a spectrum of choices such as it's -1.5 or -2, not -1.66421 (right?)

Usually right, typically in 0.25 steps. Then there's Zeiss i.Scription [0], with lenses produced not only to weird numbers, but also to correct higher order deviations than just spherical and cylindrical.

I haven't tried those yet, seeing slightly changing test results on the needed standard correction, so I assume that higher order correction would be a short term improvement only.

[0] https://www.zeiss.com/vision-care/us/eyeglass-lenses-from-ze...

dotancohen7• 4 years ago

  > anti-glare, anti-scratch, spectrum, blue light filter

What does "spectrum" mean in this context? Thanks.

LorenPechtel12• 4 years ago

The steps are .25 on the diopters. I suspect I would have slightly better vision for a while if they went to .125 as there have been plenty of times I felt that her 1 and 2 were bracketing ideal. I don't know the resolution of the axis and cylinder numbers.

blacklion• 4 years ago

Is it US-specific thing? In my country most offered branded lenses are Hoya (Japanese optical glass manufacturer) and Zeiss (German one). And, of course, a lot of cheap no-name lenses. Does Luxottica owns Hoya and/or Zeiss brands? I don't think so.

Frames are other story, of course, if you want Ray Ban you pay for (Luxottica-owned) Ray Ban. But, again, a lot of dirt-cheap non-name frames but, also, local-produced high-quality ones are available (cheaper than Ray Ban, much more expensive than no-name).

I know, that Luxottica owns all brands which will be sold to you in Tax-free shop or in in-flight magazine, but still.

For me there is one problem: Luxottica bought Oakley. Best technical sun shades ever. Now owned by Luxottica :-(

About ordering on-line: good to you if you can wear random frame without pain in nose bridge and ears :-( I don't need prescription glasses, but I've spent a lot of time to buy shades for cycling - something, which seems Ok in shop is painful after 8 hours of wearing for me.

yywwbbn2• 4 years ago

Luxottica is an Italian company, though. I’m not sure its presence is much stronger in US than in Europe. I think they focus more on the frames than on lenses.

Essilor which merged with Luxottica is pretty big in Europe as well. And it’s also a French company

dwighttk• 4 years ago

I mean

https://zennioptical.com

https://www.eyebuydirect.com/

I’ve gotten my last 8+ pairs at one of those two (may have been a third but can’t remember) the most I paid was for some sunglasses where I wanted a few upgrades $80… the rest averaged $12

h3rsko• 4 years ago

I use https://www.firmoo.com/ and have never had any issues.

calaei• 4 years ago

eyebuydirect.com is owned by Essilor, which is part of Luxottica. Despite that I still buy my glasses from them since its way cheaper than a retail store. https://www.eyebuydirect.com/terms-of-use "Thank you for visiting EyeBuyDirect.com! — an Essilor Group US Inc. website (the "Site")."

timbit426• 4 years ago

https://www.goggles4u.com/

postalrat• 4 years ago

I just ordered a pair from zenni using their "fastframe" service. Not so much because I needed a pair fast. Just because they at least they cut the lenses to fit the frame and assemble them in the USA.

tzs• 4 years ago

Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything.

When I first heard about their dominance I checked my frames, and the maybe 3 old ones I still had around. To my surprise none of them were Luxottica. My latest were Safilo. I don't remember what the other 3 were but I did look them up and they were not brands from Luxottica.

I'm pretty sure some of the places I bought some of those from did carry Luxottica too, so I'm not sure how I ended up with something else. I am pretty picky about frames (not the appearance...as long as I don't look like I'm having a go at Elton John cosplay the appearance probably won't bother me--it's the feel and size as seen from my side that matters) and usually end up going through around 90% of the frames at a glasses store before finding some I like.

I wonder now if it is just coincidence that I keep ending up with non-Luxottica frames or if there actually is some difference between their designs and the others that makes me just not like Luxottica even in a blind comparison?

JustSomeNobody3• 4 years ago

True. But. Even before Luxottica started buying up the industry, glasses were expensive. I worked in the industry in the early 90s (paid for college). We could buy CR-39 bifocal blanks for about $3.50. A frame in the Frames catalog (name brand) was about $10. Tint and UV were about $4 a bottle and would last a week, and that would tint/UV hundreds of lenses. I was making $7.50 and hour and it would take me half an hour to make them in the lab. We'd sell that pair for about $250.

dotancohen7• 4 years ago

The tint and UV coatings come in a bottle and can be applied? Can that be done at home?

Eddy_Viscosity2• 4 years ago

It's almost as if monopolies are bad. I also thought they were illegal. Why hasn't Luxottica been broken up by antitrust laws?

ekianjo• 4 years ago

In Japan you can get glasses for dirty cheap, including the eye check and case that goes with it. That's what happens when you liberate the market.

NOTE: it's not reimbursed but nobody cares because it's cheap.

bschwindHN• 4 years ago

Yep - got my current pair of glasses from Zoff for around $30 all said and done.

rippercushions• 4 years ago

Japanese brands are slowly starting to make inroads overseas too. Owndays (cheap) and 999.9 (expensive but great service and very high quality) are now available in Australia and many Asian countries, Zoff has made its way to Singapore and Hong Kong.

warbler73• 4 years ago

After decades with private practices, since I switched to WalMart my prescriptions are more accurate and glasses cost almost nothing.

ourmandave• 4 years ago

Are Walmart glasses cheaper?

My last pair was about the going rate, although it's been 4 years ago.

I still use Walmart for exams but buy all my glasses from Zenni.com.

They're so cheap, glasses have gone from sacred to disposable.

mrguyorama2• 4 years ago

When I used them regularly (as a kid) in the 2000s, they were just as expensive and gave me untold problems involving insurance and repairs. Specifically, they would turn over frame styling so often that if you broke your frame in just a few months, they would be unable to repair or replace them. I'm not convinced this isn't an issue that most places have.

flashgordon• 4 years ago

Dumb question. Frames can be 3d printed right? Is it possible to so the same with lenses?

Sounds like a "neighborhood/artisan" lens and glass maker could so this easily for a reasonable size neighborhood lucratively?

theklr• 4 years ago

Guessing it’s still a scalable issue for it to take off. King Children is still the only company I know that’s in this space, but they haven’t taken off like I’ve hoped for them to expand

dis-sys• 4 years ago

I used to pay $800-1,000 a pair, then I heard that the exact same glasses from the exact same factory just without that fancy logo costs you about $100 a pair. Bought a few of them, never looked back.

People need to accept that you get ripped off all the time, it just a normal part of everyday life. when you think a $5 walmart tshirt is cheap, well, the factory gets probably 50c.

int_19h4• 4 years ago

Perhaps life would be better if we stopped treating 10x markup as "normal part of everyday life"?

artificialLimbs2• 4 years ago

I've been paying $350-400 for my high strength prescription glasses for most of my life. Last time around I heard you could order from England and get them for a fraction. Found selectspecs.com and got my -10's for ~100 shipped to my door. Not affiliated at all, just glad I don't have to pay the gouge in the US anymore.

rahimnathwani4• 4 years ago

In the UK, there are several popular online glasses retailers:

  goggles4u
  speckyfoureyes
  GlassesDirect

Currently, Glasses Direct is offering two pairs of single-vision prescription glasses for 14GBP (16USD) including shipping anywhere in the UK: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-glasses-discou...

Varifocals are also cheap (49GBP, or 57USD, for one pair).

jtchang• 4 years ago

That's a great deal. Were they 1.74 index?

artificialLimbs2• 4 years ago

Single Vision UltraX Super Thin 1.74, Clear UV Coating, AR, Scratch Resistance

nostromo• 4 years ago

Because of insurance, which distorts markets.

Lots of people get benefits that pay for their glasses, so they're not incentivized to be economical.

dboreham• 4 years ago

Get your eyes tested and buy glasses at Costco. Also if your prescription is a simple one, Costco sells off the shelf reading glasses for around $20 for three pairs.

ck2• 4 years ago

https://google.com/search?q=reddit+"Zenni"+"Payne"+"Eyebuydi...

davidmurdoch2• 4 years ago

Buy from Zenni Optical. They are inexpensive and customer service is pretty great. My daughter broke an arm of one of her frames while playing at school. I emailed Zenni asking for tips on how to repair it. They sent me replacement frames for free.

EMM_3862• 4 years ago

I own exactly one pair of "expensive" glasses that I got from a retail chain and use as my primary pair.

I will admit, they are of much higher quality than the glasses that I order online as a back-up.

But outside of that pair, I get a print out of my prescription and go to places like www.eyebuydirect.com to get any other pairs.

The quality isn't there but we are talking about hundreds of dollars cheaper. And if anything was to happen to my main pair, I can quickly grab the $80 and I doubt anyone would even notice.

Plus, it makes wearing different styles from time to time a much more attractive offer.

walterbell• 4 years ago

What have you observed as a quality difference in the EBD pair? Frame construction? Any difference in optical clarity or face fit?

EMM_3862• 4 years ago

Frame construction is generally much poorer quality. I've had them break from just taking them off my face too fast.

Face fit is tricky, they allow you to select things like your "size" but this is broken down into "small/medium/large" when in reality it needs to take into account things like temple (arm) length, bridge width, etc.

My main pair is perfect because I spent the big bucks on them and had a professional constantly tweaking them, putting them back on my face, tweaking them some more. And that comes with the ability to return to the store and have them do it again for free if I feel like I need to.

Online you won't get any of that, so the fit isn't perfect.

Optical clarity, no complaints. The lenses are good.

But we're talking $500+ vs. $80.

eyelidlessness• 4 years ago

I’ll add another pro-Zenni comment. Not just because the glasses themselves are inexpensive (they are though, when I broke my favorite frames it cost $36 to get two replacements), but because it’s a godsend to get glasses you need if your prescription has “expired”. I’m sure there’s good reason for regulating routine vision checkups, but refusing to sell glasses to anyone who can’t get to the appointment isn’t serving anyone.

Markoff2• 4 years ago

Yeah, I have never understood whole "prescription" thing in US, here in many (all?) European countries, you just go to eyeglasses shop, they measure your eyes and you get what you want, no prescriptions, nothing. Measuring is usually free if you buy frames from them, if not it cost like 20USD, though you could still go to ophthalmologist to have them measured professionally and it would be free, but you would need to get appointment and there is quite long waiting time and still not sure if they would provide you results for free.

By US logic it's better if people don't have any glasses than bad glasses, strange logic to me.

TheWoodsy• 4 years ago

Sunglass frames are in every petrol station. Would it be possible to 3d-print a resin with known index of refraction, then go to town on the buffing wheel for an hour?

Would love to hear more about DIY corrective lenses.

Johnny5552• 4 years ago

then go to town on the buffing wheel for an hour

You can get glasses from Zenni for under $10 (their website says they start at $6.95), you'd have a hard time beating their price with DIY, gas station sun glasses cost more than that around here. Of course, at that price you're not getting the lightest lenses, or coatings, but you're probably not getting that with DIY either.

Keyframe• 4 years ago

Ah, eyewear! I see Luxottica is mentioned. Kind of similar story behind optical glass (lenses, namely) and Schott (Zeiss) behind all of it.

bpanon• 4 years ago

Because large corporations work together to ensure their mutual longevity by monopolizing the market and ensuring cheaper alternatives never make it to the market.

Nothing new under the sun.

If there was a tire that never wore our, would it be manufactured?

If there was a simple, cheap cancer treatment, would all associated businesses that profit from the treatment of cancer shut down?

If internet could be offered at 10x for the speed, for 1/10th the cost, would it be? Only if the incentives line up for the dominant player(s).

newman314• 4 years ago

I started looking at getting new glasses recently and due to my extremely poor vision, need all these extra addons for lenses (high-index, progressive etc.) and they get EXPENSIVE very quickly.

whydat_whodat• 4 years ago

I'm a customer of Zenni Optical. They have glasses from $10 - $100+.

I usually get the same set, for $100-- frameless. And that price includes blue-blocks (to reduce blue light from screens). They last long and are easily replaceable.

[1] https://www.zennioptical.com/

cozos• 4 years ago

I buy glasses (in the US) from this place called Jins. They are cheaper out-of-pocket than glasses being sold by my optometrist, even after insurance (I pay for Jins out of pocket). Not sure why and my optometrist can't explain how his glasses are betters either. I assume its some kind of price gouging.

scottmcdot• 4 years ago

FACE À FACE are high-quality glasses and I'm happy to pay the premium. They are not owned by Luxottica.

bradwood2• 4 years ago

I now have to use reading glasses. First few prescriptions were eye-wateringly expensive.

Now I just order a 4-pack off Amazon for about a tenner - never been happier. I have a pair at home, at work, in the car, in my bag and if they break I just toss 'em away without a second thought.

I'm sure it must be a lot more tricky for those with unique prescriptions but for stock readers this is definitely the way to go.

lrvick• 4 years ago

I have purchased < $20 glasses from zennioptical without a perscription online many times that were every bit as good as $500 ones I bought at lenscrafters, with near identical styles.

I started buying in bulk and worrying less about losing or babying them.

KoftaBob• 4 years ago

https://zennioptical.com

goguy• 4 years ago

Just like anything you can shop around and get a good deal.

In the UK I use glasses direct, you can pick up a pair with a prescription for £50. They regularly have discount codes so most of the time that would be £35/40. Sure they aren't designer but they look ok for the price if you don't want to spend a lot, if you use them just got driving you can probably get an even cheaper pair that don't look as good.

williamvds• 4 years ago

I've worn glasses since I was a kid, when you're entitled to a free frame from the cheaper range at Boots (a local retailer) (also, thanks, NHS). I remember struggling to find a design that I liked decent around that price range. As soon as you went out into the price ranges that weren't covered, you got a lot more nicer looking ones. At the time I was buying new frames and lenses every few years so I went with the cheap ones.

My current pair were about £30 from Aliexpress, a gorgeous rimless set with anti-glare lenses included. Needless to say I won't be buying from local retailers anymore.

I'm sure here in the UK we're also affected by the Luxottica monopoly in the US, especially when it comes to designer brands.

citizenpaul2• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the time I found out that golf balls and eink screens are also a "secret monopoly" kept by highly litigatious patents.

braunboffel2• 4 years ago

eink screens are also a "secret monopoly" kept by highly litigatious patents.

Please share the evidence for this.

citizenpaul2• 4 years ago

Search engines don't seem to work anymore to find controversial information so I could not dig up the info again. It was from several years back it might be starting to change now.

The golf balls are more interesting. Walmart/sams club actually had to give up on their own brand of golf balls due to the nonstop litigation from top flight, making it unprofitable to produce them.

dustfinger• 4 years ago

Ha! One might ask the same about braces.

piaste• 4 years ago

For many people, there is an option that side-steps the racket entirely, massively improves their QoL, and can even save money in the long term - laser eye surgery.

(disclaimer: prices are likely to be different in other countries)

Prices and quality of LES seems to have dropped significantly even as glasses have become more expensive. I had some annoying myopy / astigmastism combo so I used to pay up to 200-300€ for glasses, and prescription sunglasses were also expensive.

Femto-LASIK surgery cost me a whopping 1500€ a couple of years ago, whereas an older acquaintance told me that he had paid 10x as much in the mid-aughts. A couple of decades of glasses would not have cost me much less, and the difference it makes in quality of life cannot be overstated. Easily in the running for the best money I ever spent.

Of course, not everybody can get lasered - children and teenagers, first and foremost - but a lot more people do than realize it.

bluGill4• 4 years ago

That doesn't last as long as you think before you will need readers anyway.

I'm not saying it is a bad option, just that it isn't as great as it sounds when you are young.

atemerev• 4 years ago

Glasses are expensive because they are not just a medical device, but also a fashion accessory, and this market is a fashion market.

I have to try about 20-30 frames or so, until I find something that looks OK on me.

But! It is still possible to buy cheap enough frames that look fine. Why the _lenses_ are so expensive, that’s a different question. I routinely pay $700 or so for the lenses. Many professional multi-component _camera_ lenses cost much less than that. And it has nothing to do with Luxottica.

gnarula• 4 years ago

There's plenty of margin in the industry - as an anecdote, I've paid around £40 for a pair in the UK through an online retailer (Glasses Direct), around ~₹1500-2000 in India through an online retailer (Lenskart) and ~₹800 by visiting a local store in a Tier 2 city in India

regular2• 4 years ago

Well, don't try GlassesUSA. They are a scam operation operating under various names, working hard to test your resolve to prosecute them.

bluecalm• 4 years ago

Great suggestions for cheaper alternatives in this thread! Does anyone knows if it's possible to get cycling sunglasses of similar quality as Oakley/100%? By cycling sunglasses I mean:

-shape (those need to be big and go over forehead so you see clearly from hunched position)

-lenses (tint, increased color contrast, preferably not polarized), anti fog -safe in case of a crash

I tried shopping around but couldn't find anything that fits as well as 165$ pair of Speedcrafts (the lenses are amazing as well). The glasses are just 4 pieces of plastic (frame, lenses, nose bridge, nose pad) but somehow it's not easy to find a decent cheaper alternative.

KatieLN5• 4 years ago

try payneglasses.com. I got some sports sunglasses from there. They're wraparound and have polarized lenses. They were around $25.

Markoff2• 4 years ago

Are they? I ordered for wife glasses including frames from Zenni and it cost me 7 USD for cheap ones, 20 USD for more "expensive" ones (frame was cheap but chose some fancy lenses addons) plus 9 USD for shipping, so paid total 36 USD for two frames. But she had to have measured eyes which cost us like 20USD, it would be probably free in hospital, but too much hassle in hospital with appointments.

https://www.zennioptical.com/

cryptos• 4 years ago

Why isn't there more competition? Or, as Jeff Bezos would say: "Your margin is my opportunity."

rroot• 4 years ago

Seems like the glasses market is ripe for a disruptive startup company?

shinycode• 4 years ago

There is a French startup that tries to beat them to it.

https://lunettespourtous.com

There is some podcasts about the founder, how he managed to do it.

10€ a pair of glass from the same quality within 10mn in store.

https://lunettespourtous.com/pages/notre-mission

azubinski• 4 years ago

Usually, people buy glasses for a long time. Carrera with chameleon glasses served me for almost 15 years. They were expensive, yes. But they lasted 15 years. And this means that during these 15 years I did not buy new glasses. And so do a lot of people. And that means that if you start a company that makes cheap good glasses, you will be in trouble in a couple of years. Because good glasses last a long time, people love them and don't want to change them. So you raise your prices. I have vintage Ray Ban from the 1970s, still with real glass, not plastic, I love and wear them, and I'm not going to buy new "aviators" because I already have them. It's just such a specific product, it's not impersonal plastic boxes of electronics, this is a thing that is always with you and becomes a part of you. And there are many unknown manufacturers of cheap glasses, in any supermarket in the EU you will find racks with these glasses.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 4 years ago

Looks prime for SV disruption, no?

herbst• 4 years ago

Glasses actually aren't expensive. I pay like $20-40 per prescription glasses from China. Firmoo, Zenni, ... No quality issues so far and a far more realistic price.

No 'classic' glasses dealer makes their glasses in-house anyway. They all produce in cheap countries.

ggm• 4 years ago

Having moved to specific focal point, variable focus on high refractive index plastic (because I have some untenably bad differential between eyes and glass was causing my specs to slide off diagonally) I now find that I don't seem to get "told" the magic formulae for making my specs, to my needs.

The basics are fine. I could use a $20 test and get fixed focus lenses cheap. Getting them to re-produce what I wear appears hard. I can't find anyone to explain the small piece of paper the machine spits out with a grid of numbers. (the very experienced ocular professor who assessed some structural eye issues for me used a 20second test machine and laughed at the professionals who still use the eye chart and a face sheet of lenses. He's confident they will ultimately stop using that stuff routinely, the box does it very well)

Probably there is a canonical formula to reproduce it, I broke a pair in flight once and took the bust lenses to an optician in Paris who made me a pair from the lenses in 2 days.

Some things demand fit. where the eye sweet spot is for variable focus depends how the lenses sit on your face.

Maybe breaking the monopoly on price starts with fixed focus or bi or tri focals first, not continuous variable focus.

LorenPechtel12• 4 years ago

I think the eye chart still has use. The machine spits out a field of numbers but my eye doc uses that as a starting point to refine from. Since I have some astigmatism there is no perfect answer, it's a matter of finding what deviation from perfect is the best and I get the strong impression that that's a matter of the individual, not something the machine can measure.

tcgv• 4 years ago

In my last summer vacation I travelled abroad and forgot to bring my sunglasses.

Looking for a new one in the stores I found that prices for regular Ray-Ban (owned by Luxotica) were too expensive for my taste (~120 USD). So I decided to get a Polaroid sunglasses instead, for a third of the price (~40 USD).

My only concern was wether the lenses polarization would be up to standards. So I Googled it and found out that Polaroid was in fact the company that invented polarized lenses :)

dghughes• 4 years ago

I had the same pair of glasses for 20 years just getting new lenses as needed. A year ago I had a slight change in prescription but also had to make the plunge into bifocals. Cost to me even after insurance? $800. And they're terrible.

timbit426• 4 years ago

I got my bifocals at ZenniOptical for around $130 before insurance, and they're fine.

whywhywhydude• 4 years ago

I wonder why the Euro bureaucrats are not doing anything about one of the biggest monopolies in the Europe. Guess they are just too busy figuring out another way to milk Google.

rcMgD2BwE72F• 4 years ago

What are Google market shares in Web searches in Europe?

Aulig• 4 years ago

Lots of recommendations for Zenni here, which is excellent. I'll go ahead and recommend AliExpress if you want the absolute cheapest. You can get everything from very basic (usually ~$5 for same strength on both eyes, ~$15 for different strengths) to any custom combination of glasses & frames ($30+) there.

I've bought around a dozen and have only had good experiences. In case of bad experiences (one arrived a bit bent) you can get a refund.

I'd recommend going for a metal frame though, since they're more durable.

rodolphoarruda• 4 years ago

I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There is a glasses retail chain here called Gassi which sells 2 pairs of glasses (frames + lenses) for around 40 USD.

exabrial• 4 years ago

It's expensive because Luxottica keeps quiet. It's a monopoly and needs to be broken up.

missedthecue• 4 years ago

Reading through this thread though, it seems like they have a lot of competition at a wide range of price points, from ten bucks to a couple hundred.

jarek83• 4 years ago

In Poland you can still get very decent glasses (that could be even with a premium brand frames) with top service included for about $300. I believe it's just a market that makes it expensive or cheap. Oh, and you don't need a prescription.

beaylott1986• 4 years ago

This must be a US thing. In UK you pay £25 for an eye test (which employer is required to cover if you have to wear glasses at work) and then you can order online with prescription you get from test for £40 and usually there are 2 for 1 or 50% offers even on that. It is baffling that you would have no competition if this was costing $800 ... is there IP or regulations stopping this or something?

KatieLN5• 4 years ago

My go-to is Payneglasses.com. They're easy to work with and have incredible deals. Most of the frames I buy are $5.95 and then I add on the blue blocking protection and antiglare.

mitchbob• 4 years ago

Archived: https://archive.ph/jhgdR

Why are glasses so expensive? The industry prefers to keep that blurry (2019)

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