Eyeglasses and Online Shopping
I know it is a little bit scary to even think about buying eyeglasses “sight-unseen” (pun intended). I thought I would share my tips with you about buying your prescription glasses online, because it is something my husband and I both have done, and have been very, VERY happy with the results, and the savings are so astronomical I cannot imagine ever buying full priced glasses again. Ever.
I have worn glasses since I was 11 years old, so I have had much experience with them (um..25 years, yikes), and with what looks good on me, and with the styles I like. My husband, however, was just prescribed his glasses this year (he is 40 something), and had never worn anything but sunglasses (and the Oakley style, “bug eye” shape glasses), so this was all new to him. To prepare, he tried on glasses all over town (and priced them, as well) to determine the style, color and shape that he liked best.
As for me, I simply look through the eyeglasses choices at the website (I use Optical4Less.com, and have been very happy with them, but you can feel free to do this at any of a number of available web sites), pick a few that catch my eye (they have a great selection of classic as well as trendy styles!) and put them in my shopping cart, or in the case of Optical4Less, they have a recently viewed items list that you can move glasses into and out of.
Whatever web site you choose to do your shopping, you should be sure that they have very precise measurements of each pair of frames in their store. I get out my ruler at this point, and measure my current frames, (and maybe those of another pair of sunglasses that I like, just for the reference). We measured Marshall’s sunglasses, just for reference as well. Another important measurement is Pupillary Distance (P.D.). This measurement is to the millimeter, the distance between the center of your pupils. This is so the glasses manufacturer can assure that the lenses will be placed directly centered over your eyes.
So at this point, you compare and contrast the measurements of your glasses to the measurements online until you are satisfied that you are getting a pair that you are reasonably sure will fit your face properly and look good on you. This can take a little while, but it is a small price to pay for such dramatic savings on glasses.
From there, all you need to do is get out your doctor’s prescription for your glasses, and fill in the blanks on the order form and send it off. In Optical4Less’s case, your glasses are made in Hong Kong, and depending on the type of glasses ordered and where you live, they will take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to make, and then they will be sent to you (total waiting time for us in the US was approximately 2 weeks, if you are ordering single vision glasses). One more really nice benefit from ordering with Optical4Less was that the glasses were sent with a hard case and a lens cleaning cloth–that was a really nice little extra touch!
We have had no problems with anything with this company, and were extraordinarily happy with our glasses, and so I have been recommending them to everyone I know! I hope you will be brave, and save a buck or two!
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