Photo from endlessstudio
Have you ever wondered why glasses are so expensive? For a couple of bits of plastic or metal?
Part of the reason is the design & manufacture, although they’re small, they’re quite complicated things to make, plus the lenses have to be made in highly sophisticated laboratories that measure distances in thousandths of millimetres.
However, one of the biggest reasons is that opticians currently subsidise the low cost of eye tests and examinations by inflating the price of the glasses you actually end up buying with a massive markup.
It means they can get you into the shop, and then, once you’ve been through the test, you’ll often be passed to a salesman who isn’t a qualified optician, whose job is to sell you the most expensive pair of glasses they can.
This is the way it’s been done for years and years, which is why the industry has been so aggressive towards us when we’ve challenged this pricing model by offering more realistic prices for the glasses themselves. We can offer you a much better deal on glasses, and a lot of people in the industry don’t like that.
You should always get your eyes tested by a properly qualified optician – at least every two years – but before you buy something from the same store, make sure you check our prices online to see how much you could be saving.
Our aim is to give you the widest choice of glasses, and all the information and advice you need to make a decision, with none of the pressure you often feel whilst in a high street opticians.
Posted on: July 25th, 2008 by Mark H
We recently read an optical report, here at Glasses towers, which finished with the idea that companies who’s staff have uniforms may wish to extend their uniform to glasses.
This provoked an unexpected reaction with me – I found the idea incredibly difficult to stomach. I’d be happy to have to put on any item of clothing a company wanted me to wear – trousers, shirt hat, tie, jacket, socks, even pants if they were M&Ss finest. I’m totally happy to sacrifice individuality for a job, if that’s the nature of the job.
In fact sometimes is quite nice not having to think about what to wear.
However, when it comes to glasses I suddenly found the idea extremely difficult to accept.
It reminded me again what a unique relationship we have with our glasses.
- We wear them every day, yet often only change them every couple of years
- We begrudge spending money on them, yet they sit on our face, right in front of our eyes
- We’ll happily spend lots of money on shoes, lots of pairs of shoes, yet not many people notice them whereas glasses can change the entire way you’re perceived
- No-one else can wear them, they’re virtually unique to us
- Many people would rather not be wearing them at all
- Not many people would wear a different pair on consecutive days, yet we’d never think that about other items of clothing
- We never think “oooh, he’s wearing those glasses again, hasn’t he got any others?”
- They make people look intelligent, yet no other item of clothing does.
Going back to the idea of uniform glasses, the closest feeling we could come up with was if a company asked us to all have the same hairstyle.
Having said all that – if any companies are entertaining the idea, we’d love to chat…
Posted on: July 17th, 2008 by Mark H