> Although making a simple pair of glasses costs just a few dollars, in large parts of the world, cheap glasses are neither made nor sold.
And yet prescription glasses cost two orders of magnitude more than that.
And yet prescription glasses cost two orders of magnitude more than that.
A good portion of my eyeglasses (custom prescription, with astigmatism correction) have been <$10 drop shipped to the US from Hong Kong, frames and lenses included. The most expensive variations (Transition sunglasses, complicated plastics to be thinner, memory metal frames) were $70, frames and lenses included. Most pairs end up in the $20-$40 range shipped.
All this $150-$600 nonsense in the US just pays for the retail space, the branding, the insurance bureaucracy, and rent-seeking by the Luxxotica cartel.
The downside is that I don't get to try them on beforehand... but nothing so far has been totally unwearable, and buying six pairs for $200, as I did once, addresses that concern pretty well.
Link please!
> The Essilor group has set out to develop this channel with the acquisition of pure-player FramesDirect®, EyeBuyDirect®, Coastal®, Clearly®, VisionDirect, MyOptique, elens, eOtica and Coolwinks.
I've used EyeBuyDirect (US), who recently merged with Coastal (Canada).