Discount Online Prescription Glasses Retailer Reviews
This site was created for those looking to buy glasses online, usually to save some money. In many cases, you can find prescription glasses for under $30. I’ve put together a list of all the online retailers I could find, dug up as much information as I could find about each of them, and in some cases, purchased from the retailer, taken some pictures, and put up a review.
Feb 16 2014 UPDATE: Everything from the old site has been merged into the main site – now there’s just 1 info page, and 1 review page (when applicable) for each retailer. If anything is broken (or looks horrible), whether on your computer, tablet, or phone, please let me know though. Thanks!
If you’re looking for information, you’ve (hopefully) come to the right place. Start browsing through all the retailers one-by-one with the buttons below, or scroll down for more information about EyeglassRetailerReviews.com .
Reviews
These contain reviews of a purchase from an online glasses retailer, complete with pictures (usually).
The way it works is that my own review is listed, followed by any reviews that readers have sent in. To make things a little easier to navigate, the backgrounds are color coded.
At the end (and between each review), you will find links to the previous/next retailer.
Information Pages
Here you will find detailed information about a retailer – pretty much all the information I could find about them. The notion behind these is to cover everything that a product review might not – what lens indexes are offered, whether they do bifocals, how much shipping costs, etc.
The info pages include the following:
- where they’re located
- BBB rating
- anything extraordinary about them
- details about their frame and lens offerings
- a look at their website – how easy I found it to browse, issues I came across, etc.
- a price-chart
Note that those details are updated manually (by hand) periodically. So they aren’t always completely up to date. When it comes to the price charts, I try to list all the essentials. Single vision, bifocal, progressive prices, different lens upgrade prices, shipping costs, etc.
Tip: Each page has “Previous” & “Next” links at the top and bottom so if you are done reading the current review or info page, click the Prev/Next link to hop to the next one. You can always use the menu on the left if you want to check out the page for a specific retailer.
A brief overview of the menu options on the left:
- Information – This section contains information about each retailer – generally just about everything I could find by doing some searching and digging around, and includes a quick review of their site. “Back in the day” these were probably the most valuable pages because information on retailers was very hard to find at the time. Nowadays, the reviews are probably more helpful to more people, but the information pages are still there and are updated periodically, so feel free to check them out.
- Reviews – This section has actual purchase reviews complete with pictures. Every so often I pick a retailer and buy a pair of glasses. I put up everything here including how long it takes to ship it to me, how much it cost, how the quality seems to be, any concerns I had, if I would purchase from them again, if I’d recommend them to others based on my own experience, and more. I do have a few video reviews too if you’re interested, but they’re actually on the “information” pages because search engines sometimes send people there first and I try not to disappoint if they were hoping to land on a review. Various readers have submitted their own reviews to the site over the years, usually with pictures and observations of their own. They are included in the review pages as well. I highly recommend making use of this additional resource.
- Resources – The resources here revolve around the EGRR site itself. Contact information, FAQ’s, etc. It used to be that a link to the “old” site existed (from 2006-2009, EGRR went through constant changes), but having info about Retailer X splattered across multiple pages made things a little hairy so those pages have been added to the end of the main ones you’ll find on this site.
How this site came about…
This site is basically a result of my searching for the ‘perfect’ discount online eyeglass retailer. Of course, I don’t think you can ever find a ‘perfect’ one, as there are always trade-offs. However, you can look at what is most important to you in an online retailer, and hopefully determine which retailer is ‘perfect’ for you.
Back in January 2006, I went shopping for glasses locally. It had been about 8 years for me since last buying glasses, and it was time for a new pair. I didn’t know what the going price for a new frame and lenses were, but I knew that I didn’t want to spend much. Having seen displays with reading glasses for $5-20, I figured my $100 would get me something pretty high end. Turned out that I was looking at a minimum of $160 for the cheapest possible pair with heavy glass lenses. That didn’t sit well with me and seemed to be a bit expensive.
I came home and took my search online. After all, you can buy prescription drugs on the internet, so prescription glasses must be available too, right? It actually took me quite a while to find a few decent online retailers. At the time there was virtually no consolidated source of information out there. The few e-stores that I was finding were just as pricey as the local stores, and it wasn’t until I started browsing different forums and Usenet that I began to really have much success. When I finally *did* start coming across discount retailers, I was having trouble keeping track of the prices, options, shipping costs, etc of each. That’s when I decided to put together this site. Not only could I store the information I found in one place, but hopefully others who were in the same boat as me might be able to get some use out of it also.
Very shortly after beginning to collect information, I realized 2 things. First, there were a lot of vastly varying opinions on different retailers. Some people seemed to have a fantastic experience, and some a horrible experience with the same retailer. Second, many of the online retailers offered glasses in the $20-35 range, which was about 1/6 of the cost of a basic pair from most of the local stores. Since I was saving quite a bit of money by buying online, I decided that instead of buying my 1 ‘perfect’ pair and calling it a day, it would be feasible to start buying from a few of these retailers and then put my own experiences with them in the reviews as well. Of the 4 retailers I started with that looked somewhat legit, I assumed at least one was probably a scam, but figured that if at least 1 wasn’t, I’d still have saved some money.
I started placing orders, and put a few pages up on the web with the information I’d managed to gather, tucked away in a subfolder on another website. Word spread quickly and there seemed to be quite a bit more interest than I’d expected, so within a couple of weeks I decided to register EyeglassRetailerReviews.com and give those few pages I had put together their very own site. The rest is history!
The site has been expanded on since those early days. What started out as the little bits of information I’d managed to scrounge up about a few retailers (limited at the time to info I could find on their sites, on Usenet, and on various forums) has evolved into something quite a bit more detailed due to reader feedback, my own experiences, and the ability to watch the retailers grow over most of the last decade.
Final Words:
As you have seen (or will see), the eyeglass retailers can vary greatly from one another. Some have great prices, some have great sites, some have more lens and frame options than others, and so on.
As I’ve ordered from these retailers, I’ve been updating the site with my experiences. The old adage “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” can often ring true when shopping online, and therefore I feel that information about one’s experiences with a product/retailer are just as important as the information about the retailer’s site itself.
Keep in mind that ordering from online retailers is not for everyone, especially when it comes to something as important as eyeglasses. You can’t see, feel, or try on the frames before you buy, you can’t exactly walk into the optician’s store during business hours to make sure any problems or concerns are well taken care of, and let’s face it… mistakes can be made, quality can be poor, and you just don’t know what your glasses are really going to be like until they show up at your door.
If you’ve purchased from one of the retailers listed (or even one that isn’t!), please let me know how it went – good or bad, I’d love to hear about it. Whether you’re looking to submit a review, have feedback about this site, or just want to say “hey, I ordered from Retailer X and things went well”, feel free to toss me an email at matt@eyeglassretailerreviews.com.
Thanks, and I hope you find EyeglassRetailerReviews.com helpful!