To think glasses are too expensive

[CrazyHippo]

I had eye surgery 18months ago and will need glasses indefinitely. I will need varifocals too..

I was told to wait 12 weeks post surgery to get glasses which i did..16 weeks infact.
Standard frames and decent varifocals set me back £190.

Just a year later my vision has changed and im going to need new glasses but really cant justify 200pound again just because 1 eye has changed.

Ive shopped around but that makes little difference.

Not sure what im really asking..more of a moan than anything I think.

At that price it doesn't sound like you have a complicated prescription Branleuse

This is a really interesting article - glasses are basically a monopoly, with a really interesting godfather type at the helm. Who would have thought it! So shopping around doesn't help, as it's all pretty much one company, and the mark up is obscene. Def worth a read.

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/10/the-invisible-power-of-big-glasses-eyewear-industry-essilor-luxottica

Thanks for all your replies. Think im gonna have a look at Asda after a google people seem happy with their varifocals.

Annoying cause my right eye prescription is so perfect

Go to Asda opticians.
THey were fab
no hard sell
lovely technical staff
a fraction the cost of a well known chain I should have gone to

I’ve not RTFT.

If it’s only one eye then you only need one lens replaced. You don’t need a whole new pair of frames and two new lenses

I’ve had this happen before. They can just replace the one lens.

It's the distance and curve behind my ear I have issue with. I have a petit head and need petit frames. I know the pupillary distance gives the width ok.

Check out Asda. You can get a pair of glasses for £80 incl the lenses you need according to your prescription. Or £120 for 2 pairs (eg 1 pair sunglasses).
Is just got some. Beats the £600 I paid last time - I have -9 and astigmatism resulting in expensive lenses everywhere. Apart from Asda.

Asda are a good shout if you like the frames there

You definitely can't buy online but aree there other options around you that might offer a better price.

I love my local specsavers, my glasses may be expensive but they know exactly how thin I can go (too thin and I get migraines), they have to get the lenses made in Portugal but there's no extra cost. And last time when the prescription wasn't settling they retested my eyes and changed the lens in two pairs of glasses free of charge. Cost me €299 and was worth every single cent.

You don't need to get new frames every time, just change the lenses. Have 2 frames on rotation.

Are you entitled to a voucher? It might be worth applying for an HC2.

Another one here laughing with envy at the “mere” £190!

I am very (well into the double figures) short sighted plus have an astigmatism.

To give an idea of what that really means - I have the most expensive thinning you can have on lenses. Several hundred pounds worth. My lenses are small (to minimise thickness as they get thicker the further out you go). Despite all this I have just measured them and they are 7mm thick on the outside.

Ie milk bottles with the super duper thinning.

I did ask the optician what it would be like without and he said that his chart didn’t go that high!

Unfortunately the weight of them means that I do have permanent dents in my head although I do wear contact lenses quite a bit to try and limit “dentiness”.

My prescription is still getting worse. Usually annually although I have started having some two year gaps between needing new prescriptions.

On the bright side the science has improved enough over the last few years that they are now confident that I will always be able get suitable glasses and contact lenses (for a long time I was only just behind the technology which was a bit stressful).

Oooh - forgot to say - I do get a voucher from the government due to the awfulness of my eyes!

I think it is worth £14.40 so covers nearly 5% of the cost of a pair of glasses!

I tried one of those online companies - Glasses Direct I think, but the quality was rubbish. Same with spec savers. They are cheaper but they just aren’t as strong. Maybe when I don’t have little kids I will go for cheap ones but at the moment it will be a false economy.

That article is interesting enjoying. The trouble is, as PP have said, it’s the lenses. You can get the cheap frames but I need thinning etc which really ramps the cost up. So I never manage to pay the cheap prices advertised, even at Specsavers. The thinning on my last pair cost £95 and that was the best deal I could find in a high street opticians.

The thing that you have to remember when you are buying glasses from the opticians, whether it be a chain store or an independent, that there are LOTS of overheads and expenses that need to be covered. The price that most opticians charge for an eye test (and what the NHS will pay for one) only partially covers the actual cost of the test, so that difference has to be found somewhere.

When you buy glasses, you aren't just paying for the frames and lenses, you are paying for someone to take measurements, the materials, the electricity, the special equipment to surface and glaze the lenses which needs frequent maintenance, water which is needed to cool the lenses as they are cut, staff costs for everyone involved from the receptionist to the lab technician, the dispensing optician who has to check the glasses and ensures that they have been ordered and made correctly, and all other ancillary staff right down to the cleaners, all of whom deserve to earn a living wage.

You are also paying for the continuous training that all optometrists, contact lens staff and dispensing opticians are legally required to do, and the general staff training which, whilst not legally required, still has to be done. You are also paying for professional fees/memberships and insurances, rent, heating, business rates and tax, electricity, marketing/advertising, computer equipment, specialised testing equipment, other services such as IT support and accounting, and many, many other things, right down to the soap and paper towels that the optometrist needs to wash his/her hands between patients.

And then of course any business needs to make a profit, so that they can afford to upgrade and improve and expand their equipment, premises and services as required.

When you take all of those things (and everything else) into account, the margin on a pair of glasses isn't as much as you would think. The reason why places like ASDA are cheaper, is that they can afford to make a far smaller margin on that part of their business, because the rest of the supermarket supports them.

Actually Itchy, they are all good points.

TooStressy I used to work in the business (optometrist), and these things (and more) all have to be considered. It's not like a normal retail setup, in that we don't just buy something in ready made via wholesale and then sell it on to the customer. Every pair of glasses is custom made to a specific set of British standards, and there are lots of different steps in that process and in the running of a practice generally.

I buy online. I try the frames on in store, source them online and have extra thin lenses due to astigmatism. I usually buy from glasses direct but can’t remember where I bought my last ones but I do know I paid £79 including thinned lenses and that the frames alone were about £140 in my local opticians

A lot of people are missing that varifocals are way more expensive than single vision lenses, particularly if you want ones that have a good gradation between distance and close up with less fuzzy space.

I've been needing new glasses for months.my frames are past their best and my reading prescription needs beefing up. Can I find a any frames that I like that fit me? Can I buggery. I have the opposite problem to a pp of a big head and I almost always regret frames with 135mm arms. I have a narrow, bumpy, bony nose and plastic frames simply don't sit right, which is unfortunate because they seem to be the majority of the stock in most opticians, at the moment. The few that I've tried and liked the shape of have been black, which simply doesn't suit me any more, even though I lived in it, in my yoof.

I walked out of boots after hearing an assistant really heavily trying to upsell thinned lenses to someone with a low prescription. They've clearly not changed in the 15 years since I last used them.

Yes if you need certain prescriptions they are expensive, my frames are normally worth nothing its the prescription lenses. I can't order online they don't go high enough for my prescription. Minimum cost is normally £300.

I go to Asda now - before I was paying over £300 just for my lenses and that was before I needed varifocals as well. At Asda, 2 pairs for £125 (you can go cheaper) and they don't charge for anything extra - thinning, varifocals, prisms, tints etc. I'm really pleased with the service and would never go online with my wonky eyes and the time it takes them to work out where the lenses should be centred

You can only get cheap glasses if you have a simple prescription
I need verifocals, high prescription so have to pay for thin lenses (otherwise too heavy) various coatings £500 (cheap frames). Then I need sunglasses....can't see as well with these as I didn't pay for the 'better lenses
Now a year later prescription has changed!!
Really envy my friends who can go and get 2 pairs for £69!!

Hadn’t realise Asda don’t charge for thinning. Will hear that in mind for next time.