Buying Glasses Online Review

While buying glasses online can be convenient by saving you a trip to the local optical store, scrolling through images of widely varying styles of frames can make deciding which to choose confusing and difficult.

buying glasses online review

Just like searching for glasses online can be confusing, so is finding the best deals. Since there are so many different sites to purchase glasses from, comparing and finding the best deal can be difficult to understand.

However, when buying glasses in-store a trained professional is there to take you through every step of the way, from choosing the best glasses frame to finding the best deal for you, as well as discussing the best optical solutions for your lifestyle including sunglasses, multifocal lenses and even contact lenses.

One of the benefits of purchasing your glasses from an eye doctor or optical store is that an experienced staff member will take all the time needed with the fitting and selecting the right eyeglasses for you.

While the glasses selected, when purchased online, may look good, once they are received they may not look as expected. It can be difficult to choose style and color from a website as opposed to actually seeing them on your face in the mirror at an actual store.

There is a lot of details on all optical prescriptions and while online suppliers may be able to manufacture the lenses, the way they are positioned in the frame may not be in a way that works best with your eyes.

Durability of the lenses, prescription accuracy, and fit can all be potential problems of buying glasses online. If the glasses that were ordered online need to be adjusted, you will end up having to make a trip to the optical store after all.

While purchasing glasses online may become more popular in the future, as of now most eyeglasses are still purchased from a brick-and-mortar optical store, as the pros of buying in store outweigh the cons.

Given that going to the eye doctor is a bit of a high-risk enterprise at the moment, and most eye doctors have reduced hours or shut their doors for the time being, it might be difficult to buy new glasses in-person. There's something thrilling about trying on new pairs, but with brick-and-mortar stores staying shut, we're turning to online shops more frequently than normal.

I reviewed GlassesUSA this year and loved it. The company has plenty of features that make buying glasses from your home easy, among them a prescription app where you can use your current glasses to assess your prescription. GlassesUSA also has lots of sales and seasonal promotions, with discounts on prescription frames and high-end designers.

Unlike some other online-only retailers, GlassesUSA offers name brand frames along with their lower price tier brands. They combine many of the features of the retailers on this list, making them a great option for a first-time foray into online eyewear purchasing.

It also offers something unique to this list: A subscription service for glasses based on the fact that kids break their glasses or lose them constantly. Starting at $185, you can subscribe to Fitz Frames to get two pairs of glasses and unlimited frames for the year, which is a great deal, especially if you have kids that are active or lose their glasses a lot.

Warby Parker is one of the few retailers on this list that started with an online model and moved into storefront retail over time, thanks to its success. The big draw with Warby Parker is its Home Try-On program, which allows you to select up to five pairs of glasses and have them shipped to you to try on before you select the pair you want to purchase. They have hundreds of great styles, and add-on features like blue light filters.

Lenscrafters really got a lot of people started on their prescription glasses journey, myself included. Not only does it have brick and mortar locations everywhere, but it also sells a ton of glasses online. Lenscrafters primarily stocks name brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley, as well as more luxury brands like Tiffany. If you're looking for name-brand frames at competitive prices, Lenscrafters is a great pick. Aside from frames, Lenscrafters offer contact lenses from respected brands like Acuvue, and can be used as your primary source of contacts.

Felix + Iris offers a similar model to Warby Parker, with the option to try on four pairs at home before you commit. Its glasses are well-made, and while its price points are a bit higher than other online retailers, its prices are also consistent and fixed, so you won't find yourself checking out with several added fees tacked on. Felix + Iris offers free shipping on the try-on package and will also adjust and protect your lenses at no extra cost.

Finally, buying prescription eyeglasses online has the added convenience of being able to do it from the comfort of your own home. You can explore the wide selection of frames and fill in your prescription details without leaving the house.

We eventually lost count of all the retailers we tried during our eyewear adventures, but the official number must be at least in the twenties. However, founder Paul Anthony has been wearing glasses since he was 12 years old, so that number is far higher for him.

Among all of the online glasses stores, what we find sets Warby Parker apart from the rest is the premium quality of their entire range. We have yet to receive a pair of glasses that disappointed us or felt uncomfortable.

As for the site, it offers a stream-lined experience where you can easily browse through the entire range. One particular touch that we enjoyed when viewing a particular frame is how you can hover the mouse over the model to turn his head in order to view the glasses at different angles. This gives you a full 3D view of the glasses before you buy.

JINS has been designing each and every one of its frames in Tokyo, Japan, since 2001. As a result, their prescription and sunglasses embody not only the Japanese spirit of craftsmanship and quality, but they are always pushing the limits when it comes to innovation and style.

A standard pair of glasses may cost more than 300 when you add a few extras such as shatter-resistant lenses with anti-reflective coating, according to VSP, the largest provider of vision insurance in the U.S.

An eye care provider can also help you sort through your options for lenses (bifocals or progressives?) and lens coatings. Do you need photochromic lenses? Do you want blue light filtering glasses to reduce your digital eye strain?

Glasses bought online may be more likely to be made with the center of vision placed in the geometric center of the lens, according to a test by Wirecutter, a consumer review site owned by The New York Times.

Wirecutter recommends getting glasses from your eye care provider if you have a strong prescription or distinctive facial features, such as a low nose bridge, that may make it more challenging to fit you with frames.

In part, cCompanies like Sites such as Zenni and Warby Parker are able to sell glasses at much lower prices much more cheaply than many eye doctors and boutiques partly because they only sell their own brands of eyewear.

His concerns echo those of the American Optometric Association, which warns that when glasses are bought online, accuracy, lens durability and fit might be questionable. Steinmetz is a member of the group.

Thanks for providing such thorough reviews! I've never ordered glasses online before but am not keen to pay $600 or $700 to order through my eye doctor's office. I was disappointed to find when I tried to place an order with Warby Parker that they can't even fill my prescription (I'm -11 in one eye, and they only go to -10). The tips you provide specifically for people with high-index prescriptions are especially useful since I'm still shopping and looking at my other options.

Many thanks for your comment, Shauna. Looking back, I am glad that I took the chance online so I could finally afford new glasses, but there are certainly some measured risks (more so for high indexes). I didn't realize that Warby Parker only goes up to -10, so thanks for letting me know. They are getting the most press and that's probably why I went for them first when I wasn't sure where to start. But there's plenty of competition. I listed the names of additional companies at the end of my latest review for Mezzmer Eyewear (My Mezzmer glasses turned out to be my favorite and most comfortable pair, btw), if that helps with your search: -eyewear-review.html. I'm still writing new reviews. If you have any requests for companies I haven't addressed, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

If someone wants to buy cheap online glasses, Zenni will sell the frame and lens for $13. The problem with Warby Parker is you're getting the same rock-bottom-quality stuff, and just paying $95 for it. I recently ordered a spare pair of computer glasses just to try out the Warby Parker experience, and compared that against the same prescription $250 glasses from a local shop. The difference in image quality was very noticeable: with the WP lens on I had trouble reading the same size text on the screen, and the edges were blurry too. This is understandable since one of the differences between a cheap lens and a quality lens is sharpness, i.e. the optical quality of the materials. At least for me, for a pair of glasses I'm going to wear all day, every day, and be productive at work, and extra $150 is a fair price to pay.

Hi Michael,Thanks for your comment. I got my Warby Parker glasses when they were still a relatively new company, so I can't speak for any quality decline that might have happened since then. Although I'm not that happy with the fit of my frames (and venturing into WP HQ to have them adjusted was a failure - way too crowded and impossible to breathe in there), the lenses are very clear and high quality. They are as good as, if not better than, my $800 optical store glasses. I've worn glasses since I was a kid and have never been happy with my frames because the lenses always cost upwards of $600. At that rate, I had to choose the cheapest frames (they were never "cheap") and could only ever afford one pair of glasses at a time. WP and Zenni are definitely an improvement for me. I completely understand your philosophy on investing more in an everyday pair of glasses. I would also do the same and recommend that people have one "investment" pair. But I have to clarify the price thing. A pair of computer glasses for me would never cost $250 at a local optician. The cheapest (and ugliest, of course) pair I could find was $400 and that was with a generous discount. With Zenni, glasses in my Rx with 1.67 lenses cost a minimum of $75 for me plus shipping. It's $125 at WP and as low as $99 (I think; it's only $69 for regular index) from Mezzmer who made my favorite pair for me. The reason why I'd choose not to go with Zenni is because their return policy is poor. I've had to return a couple of pairs of glasses I got online for a replacement frame. Anything less than a no-hassle full refund is not worth bothering with. That said, if I could get my glasses for $13, I certainly would. I know people who order tons of glasses from Zenni, but then they have weak prescriptions and are not as dependent on their glasses as I am. High index lenses always cost more, which makes Zenni too big of a risk for me. 041b061a72