Buying glasses online costs less, risks more
One pair of glasses was crushed. A second pair lost their shape and kept slipping off the nose of Lissa Levy's 8- year- old son.
She bought the glasses through online retailer Zenni Optical for about $ 25 a pair, frames and lenses included.
"It seems to make a lot more sense, especially since they're going to grow, and they're going to trash them, to go for the most cost- effective method," Levy said of buying glasses online for kids.
Parents aren't the only ones heading online to purchase prescription eyewear. Consumers are increasingly buying glasses online from retailers such as Warby Parker, Zenni and EyeBuyDirect for as low as $ 6 a pair. By comparison, consumers often shell out hundreds of dollars for prescription glasses at traditional optometrists' offices and boutiques.
The number of glasses bought online is still relatively small — only about 4 to 10 percent of all prescription glasses sales are online, according to varying estimates. But sales are growing as awareness increases. The number of prescription glasses sold online grew by almost 600 percent between 2007 and 2017, according to eyewear industry group The Vision Council. Consumers bought nearly $600 million worth of prescription glasses online last Consumers are increasingly buying glasses online, but eye doctors warn that online glasses aren’t for everyone and say consumers should be wary. year, according to the council.
Companies like Zenni and Warby Parker are able to sell glasses at much lower prices than many eye doctors and boutiques partly because they sell only their own brands of eyewear.
"Most glasses in the U. S. are marked up 10 to 20 times what they cost to manufacture," said Dave Gilboa, Warby Parker cofounder and co-CEO. "That didn't make sense to us."
Local optometrists say online
competitors aren't yet putting much of a dent in their business. Eye doctors often get anywhere from one- fourth to half their revenue from eyewear sales.
But they warn that online glasses aren't for everyone and say consumers should be wary.
Dr. Robert Steinmetz, owner of SoLo Eye Care & Eyewear Gallery in Chicago, has no problem with some patients buying their glasses online. "I have a lot of contact lens patients who wear their lenses for 16 hours a day and if they wish to get a pair of glasses that can get them from the bathroom to the bedroom or out of the house in a fire, I think that's fine," Steinmetz said.
But for patients with more intense needs, online eyewear might not be appropriate, he said. He's had patients who bought eyewear online visit him because the glasses needed an adjustment or didn't properly correct their vision.
He also worries about children wearing glasses purchased online. It's especially important for children's glasses to be accurate because so much of the way children learn is tied to their vision, he said. Plus, kids' lenses should be made of material that resists breaking, such as polycarbonate, for safety reasons. Not all kids' lenses sold online are made of those stronger materials.
His concerns echo those of the American Optometric Association, which warns that when glasses are bought online, accuracy, lens durability and fit might be questionable. Steinmetz is a member of the group.
"The safest and best way to obtain your eyewear is directly from the optical dispensary associated with your eye doctor, and if your eye doctor doesn't have a dispensary, then I think a bricks- and- mortar location with a good reputation" is the next best option, said Dr. Samuel Pierce, association president.