Online eyeglasses are so cheap that you'll buy several pairs - defeating the cost-savings.
It has been about three years since we ditched the optician in favor of online glasses. And for the most part, it has been a positive experience. A friend of ours turned us on to eyebuydirect and we bought two pairs each on there. One pair broke, but they did replace it under warranty
We've broken three pairs of Eyebuydirect glasses so far. The pair above broke and I was heartbroken. I had bought two pairs - one regular glass and one self-tinting. I sat on one pair and the frame broke. Duh! I wanted to just get another pair, but they stopped making the frame. So I was out of luck.
The second pair, I wrote about before - Mark's pair. He tried to adjust them and they snapped. They replaced that under warranty. So far, so good.
The last pair was a clear (lightly tinted blue) frame that gets lots of compliments. And by the way, this is where Eyebuydirect and Zenni beat the mall stores and Walmart. Brick-and-mortar stores carry what is popular - bland and inoffensive frames in "regular" sizes. These are boring and too small for anyone with a large, melon-shaped head like mine. So you see people with big heads wearing these tiny, tiny glasses and it looks uncomfortable and is. Online sellers can carry sizes and also colors which are fun.
Anyway, I rolled over in bed on this pair and the hinges broke. I went online and the frames were only like $30 so I ordered a new pair with plain (flat) glass. Once they arrived, I popped out the lenses from the old glasses and put them in the new frames. Problem solved.
After buying some glasses from Eyebuydirect, another friend recommended Zenni. I went online and ordered the biggest pair of glasses they had - a real Clark Kent frame that fit my head but felt heavy. I've worn them occasionally, but they are not my favorites.
I noted before that these online glasses seem to last a year or two. Maybe regular glasses are the same way. Anyway, we went back to Zenni and I ordered a new pair, in bright blue plastic, which gets a lot of compliments at parties and whatnot. Eyebuydirect plays the usual games with prices, offering "sales" on glasses (I got a pair of aviator sunglasses, single prescription, for $30 on sale, I call them my "Bidens.") and it is a bit tiresome. "Buy one get two free! 80% off on glasses!" But the fine print shows that the sale is on the frames only, which can be as little as $9. 50% off $9 ain't much. When you add in the lenses - particularly transition bifocals - the $9 glasses cost over $100.
Zenni does the same sort of marketing, but also has "Zenni points" or some such, so if you buy a bunch of glasses you get a discount or even a free pair. Zenni also lets you put two people on the same account, so those points accumulate together. You know how I feel about this sort of crap (just offer lower prices!) but if that is how they set up the game, you have to at least play at it and get the free thing when it is offered.
Pricewise, Zennii is about on par with Eyebuydirect, perhaps slightly cheaper. Since they don't offer identical products, it is hard to compare apples-to-apples. But it seems that a typical pair of glasses for me, at Eyebuy or Zenni, is about a hundred bucks a pair - $110 for Eyebuy, $90 for Zenni. So I think Zenni wins the price wars - by a little bit.
When I broke my most recent pair of Eyebuydirect glasses, I took some time to study them and compare them to my (nearly) indentical Zenni glasses. It seems that the Zenni glasses have more robust hinges on them. That being said, if you sit on either pair, odds are, they are going to break. The good news is, unlike the old days when glasses were hundreds of dollars and you put them back together with tape, online glasses are cheap enough you can just get a new pair. And if the exact same frame is available, you can order just the frame (with the plain $6 lenses) and do a lens swap.
One neat thing about Zenni - they offered to engrave my phone number inside the temple for free. Kind of a neat feature. You can also use "points" to have other customizations done as well.
There are pros and cons, but the pros outweigh the cons. Online glasses - from either company - are cheaper and have more styles and sizes available that the local discount shop at the mall. The downside, from what I can see, is that since they are so cheap, it is tempting to order more. It is what I call the Costco effect - you buy in bulk, so you consume in bulk. Why not, everything is so cheap! And so it goes with online glasses.
I am set for glasses for some time now. I may order a new pair next year if these get scratched or I sit on them (again). And I may visit Zenni first and use up those points or whatever. But when it comes down to it, I likely will visit both sites and compare styles and costs (and end up buying a pair from both sites, as I did last time!).
That is one nice thing - not worrying about glasses. Losing your glasses back in the day was like losing a smart phone. The cost about the same (inflation adjusted) and it was a PITA to replace them. With low-cost glasses today, you can afford to have an extra pair. So when I rolled over on my Eyebuydirect pair, I just sighed and put on my Zennis - and went online and ordered a replacement pair.
