£6 Glasses. Is there a catch?

imatt

You know those ads on TV for glasses costing as little as £6 a pair? Are they worth it? Has anyone actually purchased any? And how does the process work?

TIA

PterionPterion

It would depend on your prescription, lens choice, frame quality etc. 
£6 sounds too good to be true

[Deleted User]

There's no catch. They are made in God knows where and it costs them peanuts to make. It they work for you and they do the job, buy them. I've never found any that work for me. In any case Glasses Direct have a recurrent promotion of two pairs for £16.

Undervalued

You know those ads on TV for glasses costing as little as £6 a pair? Are they worth it? Has anyone actually purchased any? And how does the process work?

Yes! Many times.

In addition to my varifocals, which were rather more expensive but still bought online, I have three identical £6 pairs of glasses, one each with reading, computer and distance lenses. They are fine.

The choice of frames is limited and mine where shipped from Hong Kong whereas my varifocals from the same company were made and shipped from the UK.

You will most likely need to adjust the frames yourself to fit or get somebody to do if for you. If you are not comfortable doing that then maybe not the best way to go. I have a detailed knowledge of optics (in a different field) and do lots of intricate manual work so I am not a typical customer. For that reason I don't normally recommend people without access to those those skill to buy varifocals or bifocals by this route but single vision lenses are less critical.

Spoonie_Turtle

They're rock-bottom budget glasses, and you probably have to pay for any extras such as anti-scratch coating (which tends to come as standard with less cheap offerings on other sites or from high street opticians, in my experience).  I think it depends what you want from your glasses - they may not be durable enough for all day everyday wear, but might be fine as a pair of reading glasses or maybe a spare pair.

My current ones (glasses and sunglasses) ended up costing £15 each in total with an MSE code on top of a special offer and are doing just fine a year later, but they were not from the absolute cheapest range to start with. 

[A few years ago I bought a £10 extremely basic pair from Tesco when I desperately needed an interim pair, which turned out to be really flimsy and I was glad to replace them a few months later.]

Undervalued

Spoonie_Turtle said:

They're rock-bottom budget glasses, and you probably have to pay for any extras such as anti-scratch coating (which tends to come as standard with less cheap offerings on other sites or from high street opticians, in my experience).  I think it depends what you want from your glasses - they may not be durable enough for all day everyday wear, but might be fine as a pair of reading glasses or maybe a spare pair.

My current ones (glasses and sunglasses) ended up costing £15 each in total with an MSE code on top of a special offer and are doing just fine a year later, but they were not from the absolute cheapest range to start with. 

[A few years ago I bought a £10 extremely basic pair from Tesco when I desperately needed an interim pair, which turned out to be really flimsy and I was glad to replace them a few months later.]

Included with mine and the lenses have stood up to regular use and cleaning very well.

I agree the frames were fairly basic but I have paid a lot more for worse in the past!

newlywed

I bought a pair... but I first measured my existing glasses and purchased frames that had a similar bridge size and arm length etc.

my optician said they are better than having nothing but they dont all customise for where your focus point is, where your eye is within the frames.

Spoonie_Turtle

Undervalued said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

They're rock-bottom budget glasses, and you probably have to pay for any extras such as anti-scratch coating (which tends to come as standard with less cheap offerings on other sites or from high street opticians, in my experience).  I think it depends what you want from your glasses - they may not be durable enough for all day everyday wear, but might be fine as a pair of reading glasses or maybe a spare pair.

My current ones (glasses and sunglasses) ended up costing £15 each in total with an MSE code on top of a special offer and are doing just fine a year later, but they were not from the absolute cheapest range to start with. 

[A few years ago I bought a £10 extremely basic pair from Tesco when I desperately needed an interim pair, which turned out to be really flimsy and I was glad to replace them a few months later.]

Included with mine and the lenses have stood up to regular use and cleaning very well.

I agree the frames were fairly basic but I have paid a lot more for worse in the past!

That's quite impressive.  I've just searched '£6 glasses' and the top result says it includes anti-scratch and anti-reflection coatings!  The only apparent catch is having to pay £5.95 for delivery   though the next result down says £9 including delivery ... 

newlywed said:

I bought a pair... but I first measured my existing glasses and purchased frames that had a similar bridge size and arm length etc.

my optician said they are better than having nothing but they dont all customise for where your focus point is, where your eye is within the frames.

True, some appear just to use an average pupillary distance unless you tell them otherwise.  Glasses Direct do a measuring for the distance between your pupils using a credit card held above your eyes for reference.  I don't think they quite customise it for where *exactly* in the specific frames your pupils actually sit though, I guess it just assumes that the fit is going to be snug and your pupils in the centre, whether or not your particular face shape allows that to be the case or not.

Undervalued

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Undervalued said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

They're rock-bottom budget glasses, and you probably have to pay for any extras such as anti-scratch coating (which tends to come as standard with less cheap offerings on other sites or from high street opticians, in my experience).  I think it depends what you want from your glasses - they may not be durable enough for all day everyday wear, but might be fine as a pair of reading glasses or maybe a spare pair.

My current ones (glasses and sunglasses) ended up costing £15 each in total with an MSE code on top of a special offer and are doing just fine a year later, but they were not from the absolute cheapest range to start with. 

[A few years ago I bought a £10 extremely basic pair from Tesco when I desperately needed an interim pair, which turned out to be really flimsy and I was glad to replace them a few months later.]

Included with mine and the lenses have stood up to regular use and cleaning very well.

I agree the frames were fairly basic but I have paid a lot more for worse in the past!

That's quite impressive.  I've just searched '£6 glasses' and the top result says it includes anti-scratch and anti-reflection coatings!  The only apparent catch is having to pay £5.95 for delivery   though the next result down says £9 including delivery ... 

newlywed said:

I bought a pair... but I first measured my existing glasses and purchased frames that had a similar bridge size and arm length etc.

my optician said they are better than having nothing but they dont all customise for where your focus point is, where your eye is within the frames.

True, some appear just to use an average pupillary distance unless you tell them otherwise.  Glasses Direct do a measuring for the distance between your pupils using a credit card held above your eyes for reference.  I don't think they quite customise it for where *exactly* in the specific frames your pupils actually sit though, I guess it just assumes that the fit is going to be snug and your pupils in the centre, whether or not your particular face shape allows that to be the case or not.

The delivery charge is per order, not per pair. So it wasn't so bad for my set of three pairs, making them just under £8 per pair delivered.

Another option if to find a local spectacle manufacturing business. Many will deal direct as long as you have a prescription that is less than two years old. They will adjust the frames to fit and measure your PD (distance between your eyes) for you. Prices at the nearest one to me start at £15 per pair.

Another option for the PD measurement is to post the online firm an old pair of glasses to measure from. It won't have changed for an adult unless they have had major facial trauma! 

Spoonie_Turtle

Undervalued said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Undervalued said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

They're rock-bottom budget glasses, and you probably have to pay for any extras such as anti-scratch coating (which tends to come as standard with less cheap offerings on other sites or from high street opticians, in my experience).  I think it depends what you want from your glasses - they may not be durable enough for all day everyday wear, but might be fine as a pair of reading glasses or maybe a spare pair.

My current ones (glasses and sunglasses) ended up costing £15 each in total with an MSE code on top of a special offer and are doing just fine a year later, but they were not from the absolute cheapest range to start with. 

[A few years ago I bought a £10 extremely basic pair from Tesco when I desperately needed an interim pair, which turned out to be really flimsy and I was glad to replace them a few months later.]

Included with mine and the lenses have stood up to regular use and cleaning very well.

I agree the frames were fairly basic but I have paid a lot more for worse in the past!

That's quite impressive.  I've just searched '£6 glasses' and the top result says it includes anti-scratch and anti-reflection coatings!  The only apparent catch is having to pay £5.95 for delivery   though the next result down says £9 including delivery ... 

newlywed said:

I bought a pair... but I first measured my existing glasses and purchased frames that had a similar bridge size and arm length etc.

my optician said they are better than having nothing but they dont all customise for where your focus point is, where your eye is within the frames.

True, some appear just to use an average pupillary distance unless you tell them otherwise.  Glasses Direct do a measuring for the distance between your pupils using a credit card held above your eyes for reference.  I don't think they quite customise it for where *exactly* in the specific frames your pupils actually sit though, I guess it just assumes that the fit is going to be snug and your pupils in the centre, whether or not your particular face shape allows that to be the case or not.

The delivery charge is per order, not per pair. So it wasn't so bad for my set of three pairs, making them just under £8 per pair delivered.

Another option if to find a local spectacle manufacturing business. Many will deal direct as long as you have a prescription that is less than two years old. They will adjust the frames to fit and measure your PD (distance between your eyes) for you. Prices at the nearest one to me start at £15 per pair.

Another option for the PD measurement is to post the online firm an old pair of glasses to measure from. It won't have changed for an adult unless they have had major facial trauma! 

That's true, though presumably that adds extra cost because of the postage.

I forget that some people buy multiple pairs, beyond glasses + sunglasses!