Rip Off Britain - Spectacles

nedmundo

Oldbiggles wrote: »

Bifocals with medium thin lenses, but I would never buy designer frames, I selected from the cheapest brands I could find in the store.

Actually, assuming your 'medium thin lenses' have an antireflection coating you got a good deal! I bet online isn't much cheaper for those.

Driver8

I must admit, compared to buying online, glasses can be expensive in a store. Obviously online glasses companies do not have the over heads as stores do. I have bought glasses online but never contact lenses.

This is purely down to the service i receive from Specsavers in Huddersfield, it is second to none. I could get the same contact lenses for half the price online, but then, i can't just walk into an online store and ask them to just have a quick look to make sure my eyes are ok. I can in Specsavers.

They will continue to get my business for making sure my eyes are ok till i stop wearing them. I cannot fault them and i don't think i will go blind in their hands.

geordieracer

nedmundo wrote: »

As an Optician, the 1st thing you will think when you see this is that I have my own agenda. I can catagorically state that that the average lens cost is not 25p. It might have been for a large corporation such as Vision Express in the 90s when Dean Butler owned it, but believe me, it is much higher than this, even for just basic lenses.

Having said that, it has been discussed many times before on this forum that a significant proportion of the price goes to subsidise the eye exam, which the NHS only pays a 3rd of operating cost, plus staff, equipment and other overheads.

Online is cheaper because it uses cheaper products, bought with bulk discount and low overheads/high volume. High street is more expensive because the opposite is true.

Not the most balanced bit of reporting I have seen from the BBC.

They never are when it comes to this sort of programme..

Lirin

£150- that's cheap. I'm blind in one eye, and the other has problems. I'd typically pay in around the £300 mark- and that's not designer glasses!
I would appreciate though in my local opticians- they have to mark the glasses up, everything else is extremely cheap.
I used to work for Specsavers- I'd be very interested in where the 25p thing came from, as making glasses cost more than that... Even the materials only cost way more than 25p.

Laz123

But when all's said and done opticians do rip us off.

geordieracer

Laz123 wrote: »

But when all's said and done opticians do rip us off.

along with supermarkets and just about every store on the high street. Its how they make a profit after forking out rent for the store,business rates,wages,tax,insurance,pension plans,water rates,electricity.....

SpammyTheSpammer

I have not seen them in the Pound Shop but do occasionally get pairs from Wilkinsons or QD -these are about £1.99

I need extra pairs as I keep sitting on them after I leave them on the seat after readimg for a while then getting up to make a coffee. Doh!

Freddie_Snowbits

Oldbiggles wrote: »

I’ve watched ‘’BBC’s ‘Rip Off Britain’’ today.

My sky box does not go below channel 244 or above channel 455. Is this BBC some new channel?

Ooops, I am ripped off every April to the tune of £150 odd for something I do not watch

Speccy4eyes

Ok I'm going to stand out like a sore thumb here, but I own an opticians business. It is a small family run practice, and I can assure everyone on this forum that the cost price of a set of standard lenses does NOT cost me 25p. As someone earlier mentioned, a cup of coffee from Starbucks probably costs about 15p but there are millions of people throughout the world will pay £2+ on a daily basis. At least with spectacles you only buy these every couple of years!

When I am speaking to my customers I use the analogy that spectacles are like cars. We can all get by without them, or at least on the most basic model. I could easily drive to work in a £100 banger, but I chose not to. Spectacles are the same. You could easily spend £350 on the BMW/Audi of the spectacle world, or you could spend £25 on the second hand car your mate is selling for his mum.

There are some less scupulous companies out there who will buy in low and sell high, but this program was an unfair generalisation of my profession. I have spent the best part of 7 years studying to the level I practice at, and I frequently work 12 hour days (cue the violins.....) Like any other business we have overheads to meet - wages, mortgages, electric etc and that is before I start paying my suppliers. I feel deserved in charging what I charge - I have a business to run that employs 7 people. If there was no mark up on spectacles, these people would be out of a job and another UK business would go down the tubes.

redcard

Speccy4eyes wrote: »

Ok I'm going to stand out like a sore thumb here, but I own an opticians business. It is a small family run practice, and I can assure everyone on this forum that the cost price of a set of standard lenses does NOT cost me 25p. As someone earlier mentioned, a cup of coffee from Starbucks probably costs about 15p but there are millions of people throughout the world will pay £2+ on a daily basis. At least with spectacles you only buy these every couple of years!

When I am speaking to my customers I use the analogy that spectacles are like cars. We can all get by without them, or at least on the most basic model. I could easily drive to work in a £100 banger, but I chose not to. Spectacles are the same. You could easily spend £350 on the BMW/Audi of the spectacle world, or you could spend £25 on the second hand car your mate is selling for his mum.

There are some less scupulous companies out there who will buy in low and sell high, but this program was an unfair generalisation of my profession. I have spent the best part of 7 years studying to the level I practice at, and I frequently work 12 hour days (cue the violins.....) Like any other business we have overheads to meet - wages, mortgages, electric etc and that is before I start paying my suppliers. I feel deserved in charging what I charge - I have a business to run that employs 7 people. If there was no mark up on spectacles, these people would be out of a job and another UK business would go down the tubes.

You're the second optician on this thread not telling how much you really pay for lenses.

Funny that.