Opticians vs Glasses Direct

vigman

Hi (hope this in the right section?)

I had my annual eye test last year and on the back of that bought cheapie glasses from Glasses Direct. Their service is excellent, but for a pair of distance and a pair of near vision glasses it took quite a few attempts.

I finally had the lenses professionally checked and they were near, but not on prescription. Also the frames aren't fitted to your head shape and the centres can be wrong (although my centre distance is 63mm between the two centres of my eyes, it is 30 one side and 33 the other!)

Yesterday I went back to my opticians and admitted I bought Glasses Direct (basically for spare pairs) and asked why theirs were so much more.

The answer was that this is a modern practice and my optician, who gave me nearly an hour of testing, said it costs 125 per hour to run the practice but she can only claim 20 back for testing, therefore the price of glasses reflect this (sorry about the pun!). She also spotted a potential serious eye problem because of the amount of change in my prescription in one year.

My thoughts are, if all is well and your prescription is simple, go to the cheap firms. If you need careful examination and personal aftercare on purchases, go to a reputable optician and buy from them.

A final point made was that if everyone only used the opticians for the subsidised eye test and then bought online/high street chain glasses the better opticians would go out of business.

I like saving money, but my eyesight is worth all the care and attention I can get.

Just thinking out loud really.......what do you think?

TIA

Vigman

Alan_M_2

I came to this conclusion a few years ago, even extending it to the big chains such as Vision Express and Specsavers.

I found a local optician that has provided outstanding service since I first went there 5 years ago and I wouldn't consider anything different. But I pay for the service.

isofa

Totally agree, a fully qualified ophthalmic optician has studied for years and can detect all manner of problems in an instant, including serious health issues, I'd never scrimp on eye-sight, it's just too precious.

Too much today is based on the lowest price, you can't put a value on your eyesight.

And it's the same for all businesses they have overheads, staff, premises, and also have to earn a living. A warehouse shipping out glasses all over the country really doesn't have the same per person overheads.