Eye Care

<moved from the Walmart 2013 Price thread>

Online purchasing poses a threat to the Optical Dispensaries, From the Ma & Pa places - the High volume (lenscrafters, pearle visions). Since online eyeglass buying has become such a hype, Opticals World Wide have joined in agreement to take a "PD" at the time of a eyeglass purchase. Here's an example... If you go to a tailor to get fitted for a suit, then ask for the measurements do you think they might just hand it over to you? This is why you buy glasses in person, at that, this is why you go to a knowledgeable Optician to buy glasses. Around these days most Optical Shops that you think are too expensive, have Plans and Options to get what you want for near or at Walmart & Costco prices.... for instance... I have a lightweight Polycarbonate Digital Progressive with Ultra Hard Coat TD2 for 100$. Single Vision Polycarb is 50$ with A/R.... But i also have some high end lenses that are near $620 just for lenses (Autograph 3 cr39 or poly, Crizal Prevencia A/R/ Transition 7 Brown or grey/ Or customizable clip on's that fit on your lenses ie* Chemistrie clip)... Its just the kind of vision you want to view... add on's are not worthless. they do things that your natural eyes can not, such as protect them selves from UV rays that cause irritation and disease (cancer).

EmpireOptical,

I assume you are affiliated with the Empire Optical store in Denver, based on your username. While I do not work in the eye care industry, based on what I've read, I don't agree with some of what you've said.

I do agree that the brick and mortar stores can not compete price wise with the online sellers. Walmart and Costco are able to come somewhere in between.

The prices you quote for polycarbonate with anti-reflective ($50) is a very good price for a brick and mortar store. That would be the lowest price I've seen aside from online sellers. Do you sell many lenses at that price? The private optometrist I saw seems to only use Crizal which is not cheap. Does the $100 for digital progressives you mention include anti-reflective coating or just a high quality anti-scratch hard coat? All that I could find is that TD2 seems to be a high quality anti-scratch coating from Essilor, who is also the maker of Crizal.

I'm curious what the difference is between a digital progressive (which I assume means it uses Freeform technology) and the Autograph 3? Do most people notice much difference?

As to your comment about protecting the eyes from UV rays - you can get that very cheap. I've read that all polycarbonate lenses block UV light without any coating so you don't need to pay extra for a coating to do that. On those lenses that need a UV coating, it seems that can be done fairly cheap.

It would be nice to get some more information from some of the eyeglass stores to see what they offer to compete with the low online prices.