Glasses direct blog

One of our customers, Liz, sent in this fantastic patchwork glasses case that she made for her blue Cuba Libre glasses.

We think it’s really creative and would love to see if you have made anything similar for looking after your glasses, or even the other ways in which you store your glasses. Feel free to send us your pictures at crafty@glassesdirect.co.uk and they could appear on the blog too.

Jamie’s monthly slot on Sky News brought up some more interesting and wacky stories found in the news right now including a bomb proof man, E.T. being discovered by Google Street View, a meat face off tournament and an April fools computer virus that will doom the world god help us all, you can watch the full video below.

At Glasses Direct we know how important your feedback and suggestions are for the continued success of our business. So over the years we’ve opened countless communication channels to ensure that you, our customer, have every possible way to get in touch with us and let us know how we’re doing.

Here are just some of the many ways you can get in touch with us:

- Twitter Channel: You can follow Glasses Direct on twitter to receive first hand inside stories and to be the first to hear about news and promotions. We’re also very keen to hear your feedback through Twitter and are always ready to help out.

- Flickr Group: With the launch of the UK’s first 10-day Home trial scheme, we’ve also added an option to contact us via a flickr group aptly named My New Glasses. Using flickr you can add pictures of your new glasses, leave comments and engage in conversation with other glasses wearers.

- Our Blog: The Glasses Direct Blog is updated constantly with news and practical advice. We also welcome your feedback through comments and always reply to every single one.

- Facebook Page: For those of you on Facebook (which is pretty much everyone…) we have a neat facebook page where we post pictures of our glasses range, videos and read all your comments on our wall.

- Email Us: You can send us an email 24/7 to ask@glassesdirect.co.uk or even contact Jamie Murray Wells the Glasses Direct founder directly by emailing jamie@glassesdirect.co.uk.

- Free Call Back Service: Glasses Direct is one of a handful of online stores offering a free call back service. To access the call back feature, sign into your account and look for the call back icon on the right hand side of the screen. Follow the online screen instructions and wait for the Glasses Direct customer service team to get in touch (you won’t have to wait long, that’s a promise).

- Call Us: The Glasses Direct UK customer service call centre is at hand 5 days a week on 08456 88 20 20 so if you’re having any problems placing your order or just fancy a chat about your glasses then pick up the phone and call us.

- Write to Us: Whatever you’d like to talk about, we’re here to help. Just write to us at

Glasses Direct
Gemini House
Hargreaves Road
Groundwell
Wiltshire
SN25 5AJ

We’re committed to continue winning your business through better communication.

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Ran Nir is the founder of London based Conversion Counts an online marketing consultancy focused on website e-commerce strategies.

I caught up with Jamie yesterday after he went to the Revolution Awards on Friday. It was fantastic to hear that Glasses Direct picked up the Revolution Hotshot award!

Brand Republic reported on the winners of the Revolution Awards 2009 and said:

‘For more than a decade the Revolution Awards have recognised those who consistently push the boundaries of marketing, those who venture into uncharted territory and those that do things that genuinely have never been done before. This year, with an added focus on innovation, the Revolution Awards saw the introduction of a number of new categories, including the Hot Shot Award’

I’ve been here at Glasses Direct for three years now and it makes me so happy to be recognised in this way. We are always trying to find better ways to address our customers needs. We love to try doing things differently, taking a few risks and the feedback we get from our customers is fantastic.

I asked Jamie how he felt about winning this award and he commented:

‘This is an award for companies with the best brand promise in the digital sector. It celebrates the brand we’ve built and communicated over the (almost) 5 years we’ve been in business. In that time, we’ve predominantly spread the word about online glasses via word of mouth, so although we have a world-class marketing department, this award goes out to all our satisfied customers– they’re our best marketers’

We believe that our customers are at the core of our service. Over the years some of the best features of our service have been suggested by our customers, like our Best Fit Machine, our download specification sheets, and the artwork of our free microfibre cleaning cloth. Customers have even advised us on the layout of the website, how our Virtual Mirror could work in the future and the design of our frames. We feel this award recognises their and our efforts to ensure we lead the charge in perfecting online glasses retail.

Ever since we first made buying spectacles over the web possible, we’ve been searching for innovative ways to let you ‘try before you buy’. Back in 2005 we launched the world’s first virtual mirror on our website. Today, we’ve created something just as revolutionary – our 10-day Home Trial.

This new service is now live and allows you to order up to four pairs of glasses to try on at home or work. Once ordered the glasses are delivered by post in a cool box that opens out into a pop-up stand, enabling you the opportunity to experience and try on glasses anyway, anyhow, anywhere you want. You send the glasses back to us in that same box, freepost, when you’re done.

Whenever I’m in a high street opticians store, I always want to make a shortlist of frames, and then take them home to show people and get their opinion. But you cant do that. I dont expect Dolland and Aitchison would be happy if we just walked out with a handful of frames! Equally, you might get strange looks if you took a suitcase of clothes into your high street optician and tried on 4 pairs of different glasses with different outfits. Now however, you can shop like a celebrity and have the glasses sent directly to you.

We want this service to provide you with a superior shopping experience to the high street.

It costs just £5 to have up to four pairs sent to you at home or work. When you find the glasses that are right for you, pop the box back in the post and we’ll make them up to your prescription. We’ll also reimburse the small fee once you’ve placed an order.

Why not show us your trial specs or your new glasses once you’ve ordered them? You can upload pics to our Flickr group My new glasses!

Lot 364 at New York’s Antiquorum Auctioneers had a reserve of about $20,000 and by the end of the auction, bids had been received for up to the staggering amount of $2 million. But the highly popular auction for Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic glasses became controversial after various calls (bolstered by the Indian Government itself) that it was of questionable legality, that it threatened to remove a national treasure from India, and tampered with the Gandhi legacy. People were particularly incensed that the sale itself was a contradiction of Gandhi’s own anti-materialist principles.

The twist in the tale is that Vijay Mallya, an Indian liquor and airline executive who owns the company that makes Kingfisher beer, turned out to be the winner of the auction and subsequently declared that he will be returning the glasses to India for public display. Added to that, the happy ending was that Tushar Gandhi, 49, a great-grandson of Gandhi, hasbeen reported as saying “I am very happy now. Now the things will come back to India to where it rightly belongs.”

I recommend reading the NY times coverage of the exciting auction process and surrounding controversy here and here.

So what do you think? If the auction had not gone ahead, as everyone was calling for, the glasses would be probably still be hidden in the collection of filmmaker James Otis somewhere in Los Angeles. But now that it has gone ahead, the glasses are returned to delight crowds in a museum in India.

All week we’ve been deciding on our recipes and cooking up ideas for our Red Nose Day cake baking competition! Rick, our Online Marketing Manager even got his kids helping out:

All day we’re going to be trying to sell our cakes to each other to raise some money for RND and we’re also giving £1 from every order today to the cause.

And now finally we can reveal the amazing creations from the Glasses Direct London and Swindon teams!

Here is the spread from the London team:

It includes this selection of delectable fancies:

• Yummy double chocolate and walnut brownies
• Tasty oatmeal and raisin cookies
• Paula’s special strawberry surprise
• Ben’s ultimate warrior cakes: raspberry and cherry, banana double chocolate chip; all topped with a red nose cherry and sprinkled with sugar
• Hemal’s spicy chilli cake
• Spec-tacular fairy cakes

The team in our Swindon warehouse put together this sparkly chocolate cake that they named Fulfillment Fancy:

And last but certainly not least, Alan, our Customer Service Manager got his neighbour to make this special Glasses Direct Red Nose Day chocolate cake. Genius!

This year we asked for ideas, pictures, suggestions for the design on the front of our free microfibre cleaning cloth that comes with each pair of specs that we ship. You can see the original post about the competion here.

The competition closed on February the 27th and we had tons of entries. We’ve tried to get in touch with everyone who took the time to send us their ideas to say thank you as I’ve been overwhelmed by the response. Some of the people we’ve been in touch with said that we could publish their entry on our blog, so Paula Norris our graphic designer, has knocked them up into a big mosaic. Now for the difficult part of choosing the winner. Stay tuned for a further update…