Money Saver

We salute another innovative online business.

Glasses Direct, where you can by a wide range of prescription specs at prices that won’t make your eyes water, is a real e-commerce fairytale. Founder James Murray Wells, 21, was studying English at Bristol’s university of the West of England when he discovered that he needed glasses. Staggered to be charged £150 for a bit of wire and two lenses, James did his research and found that a pair of specs costs around a fiver to make. So in summer 2004, with no formal business training, James opened Glasses Direct from his mum and dad’s spare room. The site sells glasses from just £15 (annoying the bigger glasses manufacturers in the process), and it’s user-friendly features include a Q & A section and a personal prescription page. Little wonder that it now boasts an in-house stock of over 10,000 glasses a staff of 11 and a weekly turnover of thousands of pounds!