Rip Off Britain - Spectacles

roddydogs

How about an ex-jeweler telling us about mark-ups.

nedmundo

redcard wrote: »

Unfortunately more people are buying their glasses online. Sure, you guys can still do the eye testing, but you'll probably have to revisit your business model if you want to survive.

That's a fair comment.

**dancingbutterfly**

nedmundo wrote: »

Worth pointing out that the costs you quote are for 'budget' quality lenses. Better lenses with better optics and coatings, which the majority of good opticians would use, cost substatially more.

BTW - there's no such thing as 1.74 polycarbonate.

Haha! of course beg your pardon! The 1.74's are already strong enough arent they?!

I will amend post.

But even for a budget single vision lense with a hard coat and anti reflection coating the cheapest it would cost us was £1.50 per lense. If we would source our lenses from kodak or essilor zeiss etc the cost for the same would start from around £15 per lense .

**dancingbutterfly**

nedmundo wrote: »

There was a monopoly in those days, before deregulation of dispensing.

This i did not know, can i ask what happened? thanks

Laz123

nedmundo wrote: »

There was a monopoly in those days, before deregulation of dispensing.

Now it's called a cartel.

And another thing that annoys me is this imposed two year eye test limitation. You can't get a pair of specs if the prescription is older than two years.

But it's for your own good because you may have something wrong which will only be picked up by regular eye tests.

I don't have medical tests every two years, so the choice should be mine, not theirs.

Vik_36

I had an eye test from Vision Express for two pairs it would have cost me £350. I ended up going to sightcare opticians and got my glasses and a pair of sunglasses for £250.

mttylad

My last pair cost me £13 and are perfectly fine.

poi55on

Googlewhacker wrote: »

why not create your own business as an optician then and charge lower prices....you'll make a killing:cool:

This is what me and my brother have done. He's been in the trade for 25+years.

Just a quick note, complex lenses are not on average 25p I wish they did we'd be even cheaper. And as for the 25p lenses these are either semi-finished lenses that still need surfacing to your rx using machines that cost 10s of thousands, or its because they hight street ops order in such large numbers.

As a rule most stock lenses are +/-6.00 sph +/-2.00 cyls for 1.5index lenses, abd usually its worth going thinner when you're above +/- 3.00 but it depends on a lot of things. PD's, frame shape/size and so on.

To give you all an idea before you shoot me down, that "expert" said about the internet price being around £19 for SV, our prices start at £19 complete, and that includes us measuring your PD's and fitting your frame. we have 5 ranges from 19-65 for sv, and our top designers are £155 with MAR coated SV

poi55on

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.

The cheapest in my shop would be £42, £10 for an eye test. So £52 total

poi55on

CrazyNerd wrote: »

the profit in my practice is very very slim and is certainly not going to make anyone rich, do you know how much optometrists cost (not paid enough as far as I'm concerned), insurance,equiptment, maintenance,training. You do realise they are healthcare professionals, its much much more than determining a person's prescription.

Here here, there was a lot of misleading info in this program. And the lady interviewed was right, you don't have to have designer frames.

Also do you know where you can get these "even comlex rx" lenses for 25p!?