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[MSE Archna]

This thread is to specifically discuss the content of the Glasses Buying Cost Cutting Plan article.

To read the article: Click here.

To discuss or ask a question about the article click reply.

[cheekymole]

I have a voucher for a free eye test at D&A if anyone wants it. PM me.

I did put it on the Discounts Board to didn't get any response.
I hope you don't mind me putting it here

[koru]

Buying on line is a good option, but I think Martin goes a bit too far in dismissing any alternatives.

Sure, you can pay £99 at Dollond & Aitchison for basic frames, if you are really stupid or rich, but to use this as the only comparison is to exaggerate the cost benefit of buying online. There are plenty of cheaper options and special offers at most opticians. A realistic price for a basic frame on the high street would be more like £40. Still more expensive than the real cheapies online, but not that much extra, and at least you do get to see the frames and try them before you buy and get them fitted to your exact face, and take them back easily if they are faulty.

And if you want designer frames, which many of us do, then again the difference in price is less marked. Indeed, if you are a Costco member (or know someone who is), they sell designer frames for as little as £40, including frames, so online is no cheaper at all.

I'm not an optician and I'm not saying don't buy them online, but I think the choice is not as clear as Martin suggests.

[coensel]

I am in agreement with koru here, some very essential items are missing from the article.

I just visited glassesdirect.co.uk, to get an understanding of what is offered, and I think, the "discount" is not worth the potential risks:

• Whilst I definately see there being a target audience for this product, something needs to be taken into account, most people wear their glasses every day, for most part of that day. They need to be comfortable, they need to suit you, they do not need to be to wide, they do not need to be too small, the lense needs to be centred, the weight of the glassess is important, and so on, and so on. Especially considering you can't try before you buy or return them, buying online seems risky. Although the latter is not possible in stores either, I do find that trying on your glasses, even for 5 seconds, gives a very good impression of how they will fit.
• Which brings me to the second point, I don't know anyowe who has bought a pair of glasses and didn't need adjustments made to the nose bridge or the arm lenth. Sure you can do that yourself, but with the delicate materials used these days, I'd rather let the professionals do it.
• There is another reason why this made to fit is so important. If the lenses aren't properly alligned with your eyes, this could potentially give headaches or tiredness due to stressed eyes. Again, here I'd rather have a professional looking at this.
• My glasses costed me over £300, mainly because of the lenses required. What I can get from the site is that the frames might be cheaper, the lenses don't seem to be that much cheaper. Knowing that I am keeping my glasses for at least a year, and that I am in a position to talk to someone personally when I have a problem with them, is less then a pound a day not a very good deal then?
• Frame colour, how on earth do you display that on a website? Often there is such fine detail in a frame, or its colour, that it can not be made visible by image, example: click here.
• I could go on for a while, but feel like a right moan

All in all, I think these sites could be a good idea for people wearing glasses part time, but I'd really love to read some experiences from people who actually used a service like this and are wearing their glasses all the time.

[pistjordy]

I work for the NHS and since I work with computers we get our eye tests paid for so most people should check with their employer about similar schemes. We also get £30 knocked off the price of any glasses we buy - however, our employers have sneakily said that they will only pay the £30 if the optician admits we ONLY need the glasses for using display equiment. So if you need glasses for driving, TV, reading AND using computers you won't get £30! Sneaky.

[Lady S]

For anyone interested who lives in the west midlands there is a factory shop which does specs. They are really really cheap, I have some FCUK ones on at the moment and they were only £79.99 including thin and lights ( ask for the polycarb they are only a £10 add on extra)

Its called Parmalee and they used to produce all the glasses for Specsavers until they ended the contract, so now they do it on a small scale themselves, they are on the industrial estate in Aldridge. If anyone wants any more details PM me.

[loudcloud]

I work for a large High Street optician. While I agree totally with Martin and the savings that can be had online, I feel that I must voice some concerns with using such services.

Firstly, “Pupiliary Distance” or PD. Using a mirror to take this measurement is a good idea. The problem arises when you have a mid to high prescription.

When you Sphere, or sph for short, is greater than 2.50 then having this measurement out by more than 1.0 of a millimeter can create something called prism. This can cause dizziness, headaches and sickness, as well as poor vision.

With the PD the higher the prescription the more accurate it needs to be.

Secondly, when you have a prescription of 4.00 or more you also need to know your pupil height. This is the distance from the lowest point of the frame to the center of the pupil. This measurement can only be taken when the person is wearing the frame.

If this measurement is out you might have similar problems to above.

For these reasons I would be very careful when using such services if you have a high prescription. A small amount of prism can greatly affect your vision.


Thirdly, on the subject of Varifocals and Bifocals. I would have to say stick to your optician. These lenses need a lot of measurements. These measurements require the customer to ware the frame that they have chosen so that the exact position of the pupil can be taken in relation to the lowest point on the frame.

Feel free to contact me with your questions or opinions to anything I have posted here.


Lastly, the frame it’s self. Yes it looks good on the screen. But how do you know it fits?? What with bridge do you need so that the lenses sit ether side of your nose not in front of it? How wide is your head? How far back are your ears? These are all things that your High Street optician will be asking and looking at.

[loudcloud]

Originally Posted by pistjordy

We also get £30 knocked off the price of any glasses we buy - however, our employers have sneakily said that they will only pay the £30 if the optician admits we ONLY need the glasses for using display equiment. So if you need glasses for driving, TV, reading AND using computers you won't get £30! Sneaky.

Sorry got to add my 2 pennys worth. This is due to there obligations under health and safety laws regarding the use of a display screen. By law they only have to pay for glasses when they are purely for computer use.

[Davidboy]

All I can say is I bought a pair of basic glasses from glassesdirect, I supplied the perscription I had done from Specsavers and they are just fine. I could wear them all day no problems, as it happens they are reading glasses for £15 + £2.50p&p. I am not complaining. Very happy with them.

I did buy a new pair from Specsavers are the time, photochromic, so could not have a second pair free, they cost me £125 so I think next time will try Glassessdirect again.

Where I work you can only get help with glasses if you need them for computer work only.

[pickle_plum]

I completely agree with you coensel and loudcloud! At least someones thinking about this with the head rather than the wallet! Ok we all like to save money but at what long term cost? does no-one value their eye sight anymore? and you can save money and buy specs of the high street you just have to look a bit harder. As an experienced eyecare professional myself and others at work always have a great giggle at the fact that people by specs over the internet-i've seen some great examples of their hand work! a pupil distance measurement MUST be taken accurately! this is taken to ensure that the clearest part of your lenses (where the most accurate part of your prescription is) is directly in front of your pupil and to avoid inducing any prism as mentioned by loudcloud we don't take the measurement for the pure pleasure of it! As for varifocals/bifocals there is no way that would work unless by pure luck! Also the fit is very important and as for going to the high street to get a PROFESSIONAL to sort out your cheap specs thats just taking the P! at least with a proper opticians you get the professional service and the comeback if there is any problems.
sorry to moan but by people buying over the internet will only sway people away from training in optics due to feeling 'its a waste of time' and it will cost you in the long run replacing useless specs and the cost of eyetests will eventually increase in order to bring the cost of specs down

[millymollymandy]

I just want to say that I bought some specs from newspecs.co.uk - they arrived Saturday from Hong Kong and I am delighted with them! They are varifocal, rimless and have thin lenses with anti glare and scratch resist coating - absolutely amazing. I shall be buying another pair once the Xmas rush on my pocket is over. This was the only co. I found doing varifocals on rimless, and I must say I expected them to be terrible cheap varifocals (I had sillhouette before) but I was really surprised by the quality. Oh - cost was £70 delivered, compared to over £300 for same anywhere else, including specsavers, where my second pair would be from a range I don't even like.
hope this is useful to someone

[raeble]

Funny how we seem to have a load of opticians on this thread warning people about the evils of buying glasses online. I went into Specsavers a couple of years back the cheapest pair of glasses frames that suited me were £100. This is just for the frames. I then had to get the lenses. This cost me another hundred and something. I then needed another pair of glasses for the spare pair as I wear my glasses all the time. I was able to find another pair, I had to pay for the lenses again. My bill at the end of this was £347 including the eye test. It took three weeks for my glasses to be returned to the opticians and fitted.

Less than a year later the most expensive pair started falling apart. So I was on the spare pair as I couldn't get to the opticians. These hadn't been fitted properly so they were wonky. I needed to get another pair of glasses but didn't fancy forking out another £300+. When I looked on this site and saw a thread recommending goggles4u with specs at £15. I didn't see what I had to loose. I got get twenty pairs from there for what I had paid for two pairs in Specsavers.

So I got a free eye test with a voucher from D&A, asked the girl who was taking my details what my pupil distance was - they measure it for their records incase you buy a pair of glasses with them. Then I went online and bought a pair of glasses from goggles4u. This took eight days to get to me from Pakistan. Instead of the twenty one days it took in this country, the glasses also included high index lenses and coatings at no extra cost.

I have not experienced any headaches, unlike sometimes when I have bought glasses from these so called "Professionals". Professional rip off merchants is more like it. Opticians have had it all their own way for too long. Now with the internet they are finally getting serious competition.

[loudcloud]

The problems I have talked about on this site, as I said, are passable. I do not believe that I have ever stated that you would have problems.

Opticians have insurance. So say you have your internet glasses, you have entered all your info into the website. Your glasses arrive. You put them on and all appears fine. You get into your car and start to drive. While driving you have an accident because of a problem with your glasses.

Are you covered?????? No, probably not. If you had got your specs from a UK optician then you would have some comeback. You would only have some comeback if the specs had been supplied wrongly.

If you take your own PD then you are to blame if it is out and creates visual problems.

If someone was to come into my store and ask me to take there PD I would have to charge them £30.00 to do this. This is to cover my time, insurance and the Medical record I MUST keep of this information.

People appear to forget that glasses are a medical device.

Badly fitting glasses with incorrect measurements could POSABLEY be fatal!

[ScoobyDooLondon]

I've seen a frame that I like, its a Hugo Boss frame from Specsavers which is £125 - where can I get the same frame cheaper?

I've tried a few other sites but the model numbers all seem to be different - is this one of the tricks used to ensure that we don't buy online?

http://www.specsavers.co.uk/cgi-bin/...prodid=1001772

[loudcloud]

All Specsavers frames including the designer ones are exclusive to Specsavers.

Specsavers do have there sale on at the moment so there would be 25% off the cost. The Single Vision Lenses are included in the price as well.

[speedyjoe]

Well the last time my wife bought some glasses from Specsavers BOGOF, at about £150, for very plain rimmed specs that were quite frankly !!!!e. Neither have been comfortable, optically she says they are poor, they don't look very nice and the coatings are rubbish.

I went and got a quote for rimless glasses last year, from another high street opticians. It started at about £100 - the listed price, but soon went up - "oh you need special thinner lenses because of your prescription" blah blah "you need something else special" blah blah and in the end it was going to be over £300. Oh well I said forget it I'll stick with contacts and my old back ups.

Now last month I got two pairs of titanium, hingeless, rimless, thin lens glasses from optical4less.com (HK based) for £92 delivered, and they are fantastic. I am really really pleased, they look great and are really comfortable. Though of course they might make my head explode, and because I am obviously too dim to tell whether they allow me to see properly I may end up crashing my car but I'm willing to take my chances :-)

[raeble]

Originally Posted by loudcloud

If someone was to come into my store and ask me to take there PD I would have to charge them £30.00 to do this. This is to cover my time, insurance and the Medical record I MUST keep of this information.

People appear to forget that glasses are a medical device.

Badly fitting glasses with incorrect measurements could POSABLEY be fatal!

THIRTY QUID? You're having a laugh. When I went into D&A the girl measured my PD with an electronic device. It took her all of five seconds and you have the cheek to charge £30 for that? Not that anyone would be stupid enough to go into a store and ask for the PD without having an eye test first.

Yes they could possibly fatal but as most people get fitted and measured by a sales assistant rather than a qualified optician I don't actually see where you are going with this.

You opticians need to get into the real world where the rest of us are living, we have plenty of other pulls on our hard earned cash. We can't all afford to put aside £300 for a new pair of glasses. What are we supposed to go without to buy these extortionately priced glasses? Heating? Electricity? Council Tax? Or do you think that we shoud go without buying a new pair of glasses when our prescriptions change because we can't afford it, instead of buying a cheap pair manufacturered to a very high standard in the Far East for instance which might possibly make our brains explode.

[loudcloud]

I have never disrespected the quality of the workmanship of glasses from the Far East. They are made to very high standards.

My point is that we are talking about your health. Do you really want to cut corners when it comes to you eyesight????

The sales assistant that took you your pd would have had extensive training to do this and would have been supervised by a Dispensing Optician. A D.O. is not the same as an optician. They deal with the glasses themselves and not finding the prescription.

As I have said. Glasses are a Medical Device. You have had your PD taken professionally.

If you read my posts I have talked about the problems you might have with you glasses if you take your PD your self, or if you enter it into the order incorrectly.

To see for your self that can happen to your vision when your PD is out you only need to look as far as a magnifying glass. When you look through on you can only see through the very center of the magnifier. If you try to look through the sides of the lens you will see that the page or what ever you are looking at will slope away and become very blurred.

This is the Prism working and is exactly the same in glasses. As I have said before the higher your prescription the worse this becomes.

You may not even notice this with glasses when you first put them on. It may take a few hours or even days for you to have any problems due to an incorrect PD. As I have said before, you may not even have any problems.

[martinmarv]

I can't see any other mention of it, but my local Specsavers (Sutton, Surrey) is doing free eye-tests throughout December. There's a big sign in the window, so it looks like it could be nationwide.
I had one on Saturday, and there was no pressure to buy glasses from them.
(I would have gotten the money back from work anyway, as I work with a VDU all day, but nice to miss out on the paperwork!).

[MSE Archna]

Hi,

Just to let you know I called Specsavers press office to see if it was a nationwide offer but sadly it's not. Do post if the deal is on in your area though.

Archna