How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all

Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by commandlinefan on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:20PM (#19313325)

Well, my first thought was - if eyewear can be produced for less, why doesn't somebody take advantage of the opportunity and do so? Capitalism at its finest and all that. But the answer immediately struck me: if somebody was offering a product at half the cost everybody else was, I wouldn't trust it - and I suspect most other people wouldn't, either. Considering the size of the initial investment, this upstart wouldn't be able to get enough traction to stay afloat.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by fitzroy on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:32PM (#19313447)

Zenni Optical does, as well as several other online retailers.

There have been a few good HN threads on the topic previously. Here are a couple I had bookmarked:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13091936

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15373992

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by P_I_Staker on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @06:05AM (#19317996)

Their sunglasses are half the price of brand name or more, and substantially worse. I can get Oakleys, Spys, or Nikes for $50-80 easily.

I might not be able to get whatever pair I want right now, but I'd find a decent one. The quality from a fashion perspective would be miles ahead, I don't even care about brand name; just how they look. Sunglasses for me are something that I actively wear 1-5 pairs of at a time.

Frankly I could afford to pay $100-300, but don't need to. Most people care more about the brand and status aspect, but I don't, just how they look. $50-150 for something like a pair of shoes is a reality most people can and do deal with. If they (Zenni) looked like glasses I'd want to wear, I'd jump at them. American optical have aviators in that price range, and aren't owned by luxottica

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by smush on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:28PM (#19313414)

ZenniOptical - I've only used their glasses aside from my very first pair. They've been fine, and if someone were to step on my glasses, I'd angrily retrieve spare # 3 from my desk and/or spare # 2 from my car since each pair is ~30-70 USD.

Not an ad

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by P_I_Staker on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @06:11AM (#19318021)

I don't understand the draw of this. I can get name brand glasses for $50-100. Their low end models look way better IMO. Personally I buy Spy, Oakley's, Nikes, or American Optical; all for less than $80, sometimes substantially. Also not a shill.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by munchbunny on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:24PM (#19313365)

Companies can and do, e.g. Costco, for prescription glasses anyway.

I bet what often happens instead is that the higher margin company just buys out the cheaper guy, and... it's back to the higher prices!

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by linuxftw on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:42PM (#19313553)

This is how it seems to work in the US Airline industry.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by imroot on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @03:07PM (#19313754)

Luxottica ran the CostCo Optical centers for a little bit. I believe they got out of it because they were not making any money on it.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by munchbunny on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @03:14PM (#19313805)

That makes sense. Costco sells a lot more than just eyeglasses, so it's a rare case where Luxottica just doesn't have leverage. If it's not Luxottica, it's someone else, but Costco's brand is very strong, so there's no concern about quality where you'd otherwise judge based on price/brand.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by ams6110 on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:23PM (#19313354)

That's not how the market works. You may think that way, but most people shop on price above all else.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by onychomys on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:23PM (#19313353)

More importantly, when you have a giant company with a monopoly on something, they don't have to compete with you, they can instead just buy you up.

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Re:How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former indu... by mrguyorama on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @03:01PM (#19313702)

Which is what the company behind lenscrafters did. IIRC, Oakley tried to compete fairly, and not play their monopoly/collusion game, so Luxottica threatened to pull from any stores that carried Oakley. When Oakley inevitably lost a huge amount of sales and the companies value tanked, Luxottica bought them.

Nintendo did the same thing, minus the buyout, in the eighties when video game manufacturers tried to subvert Nintendo's control in that market.

You don't need a full fledged monopoly to upset market forces. Even the existence of a single large entity that can make unified decisions destroy a healthy market

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