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The reason eye glasses cost so much is the multiple monopolies of Luxottica. Luxottica owns: (1) nearly all brand name frames including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada e
by krishanath 9y ago
The reason eye glasses cost so much is the multiple monopolies of Luxottica. Luxottica owns: (1) nearly all brand name frames including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada eyewear, Armani eyewear and so on, (2) nearly all retail stores such as LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical and Target Optical and (3) EyeMed, one of the largest vision insurance companies.
Luxottica retail brands: http://www.luxottica.com/en/retail-brands http://www.luxottica.com/en/retail-brands
Luxottica eyewear brands: http://www.luxottica.com/en/eyewear-brands http://www.luxottica.com/en/eyewear-brands
Luxottica vision insurance: http://www.luxottica.com/en/node/6336 http://www.luxottica.com/en/node/6336
See 60 Minutes story on Luxottica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDdq2rIqAlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDdq2rIqAlM
- petilon 9y agoAnd now Luxottica is buying the largest maker of ophthalmic lenses: Essilor. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/luxottica-essilor-agree-to-50-billion-euro-merger-ft-reports https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/luxottica...
- burntrelish1273 9y agoThank you. Non-Luxopoly choices FTW: https://madeeyewear.com https://madeeyewear.com https://www.warbyparker.com https://www.warbyparker.com Also, VSP is the major vision insurance co. in the US (80M insured). Perhaps the source of standard retail costs of prescriptions is the negotiation powers of insurance co.'s coupled with insured apathy ("it's not my money").
- jayess 9y agohttp://www.zennioptical.com http://www.zennioptical.com
- lwhalen 9y agoTHIS. Before Lasik, I was all about the Zenni Optical.
- joezydeco 9y agoThe dog ate my wife's $250 prescription lenses, so she wore her $40 backup pair from Zenni to her eye exam. After a shitload of "oh, these aren't our lenses", they reluctantly put the glasses in their refractometer. The Zenni lenses matched the prescription perfectly.
- 1123581321 9y agoI bought a pair of Zennis in 2013. I have a strong prescription and got maxed out UV, indexing, etc. on a (imo) good-looking frame. $75 for what would have cost me $300-400 out of pocket after my vision insurance credit. Additionally, I was able to submit the $75 as an out-of-network expense. It took some paperwork, but the return on my time was worthwhile.
- pravda 9y ago$75? Way to go big spender. ;-) My latest shipment of Zenni's came in recently. $28.26 for two pairs. And they came in ten days! http://www.zennioptical.com http://www.zennioptical.com
- dsr_ 9y agoSalesguy comes in wearing sharp titanium semi-rimless glasses. Notices that I'm wearing very similar. We compare. His cost $350. Mine cost $35 including shipping. I bought a backup pair, too.
- ska 9y agoI'm sure some people have had very good experience with zenni, but for what it's worth I gave up after 4 pairs (over about 3 years) that never quite had the right prescription. I had better luck with Warby Parker, but only have a single pair for comparison.
- whathaschanged 9y agoWarbyparker is a ripoff just like all the other middlemen claiming to disrupt an overpriced market. Zenni optical will get you a pair of frames with lenses for under $10. Everything else is paying for personal style preference.
- imroot 9y agoWarbyparker couldn't get my prescription right, even after two remakes. My doctor showed me his prescription, and then showed me how Warbyparker dispensed the lenses. After giving WP two tries to make it right, I just gave up and spent $400 buying two pairs of glasses and a pair of sunglasses from my normal Optometrist (who told me that 'I'd be back' when I mentioned that I wanted to try Warbyparker).
- fern12 9y ago>...and then showed me how Warbyparker dispensed the lenses. Can you clarify this portion of your comment? I'm interested in hearing whatever insight he gave. I had a similar experience with WP, but I assumed it was due to my tough prescription.
- hanley 9y agoI had a similar experience with Warby. Two attempts to get the prescription right, both sets of lenses were wrong. I don't have a strong prescription, nothing complicated.
- walterbell 9y agoFramesDirect and EyeBuyDirect are both owned by Essilor, so their lenses are made in Essilor labs (soon merging with Luxottica/Lenscrafters). Warby Parker opened their own lab this year: https://www.inc.com/magazine/201706/tom-foster/warby-parker-eyewear.html https://www.inc.com/magazine/201706/tom-foster/warby-parker-...
- withdavidli 9y agoTrying on frames at their brick and mortar helped my decision making a lot. Every time I have to pick out frames, only a handful looks decent on my face out of more than a thousand. Did Zenni and 39dollarglasses before. Prescription is okay, but some of the frames came crooked and chipped easily.
- Grangar 9y agoAnother good choice is https://www.aceandtate.com/ https://www.aceandtate.com/ Quality frames, all-in for €99,-. I'll never visit a brand carrying optometrist again.
- imroot 9y agoLuxottica also wholesales their frames to independent retailers -- so even if you're not buying the frames at their stores, or buying their sunglasses at Sunglass Hut, you're still paying for their product. They're also quite aggressive about suing the knockoff Rayban and Oakley retailers -- or so I've heard.
- wallace_f 9y agoIf you're travelling overseas, depending in where you are going and what insurance you have, you can save a lot of money on things like eyewear, contact lenses; as well as things like perscription meds and routine dental work.
- walterbell 9y agoWhich countries have good offerings in eyecare?