Zenni, eyebuydirect, goggle4u are all in this space and provide cheaper glasses. It seems like new ones keep starting, then slowly raise prices, leaving a gap for a new minimum cost provider.

Eyeglasses are an interesting example of a market failure - customers have been paying 10x the actual price for an important item, for 20+ years, and the market hasn't fixed it.

In Beijing I used to just head down to Panjiayuan Zhaojia Glasses City and get pairs for ~15 bucks. Rest your head on a machine that reads your prescription, pick out frames, bargain, 30 minutes later you have your glasses.

In the US glasses are medicalized, which hides the reality that glasses are really cheap and simple to make; for people without money this causes real harm.

Yup. My wife works at Zenni in the manufacturing and product. I even tagged along twice to Danyang (Spectacle City). It's hard for another company to come in offering $7 glasses including lenses to the US when you don't have the supply chain optimized (incl. in-house manufacturing of certain parts) and the economies of scale and relationships with suppliers.

And then to deal with the sheer operations (talking like ten thousand plus frames per day).

In the US the optometrist (eye doctor with no MD) makes most of their money from selling marked up prescription glasses.

EyeBuyDirect is owned by Essilor, which merged with Luxottica last year.

I think that the same is true for hearing aids.

Hearing aids are actually quite complicated little machines compared to a pair of lenses.

can't remember the name of the place, but there's a low cost franchise place I went to a few years back. I had a prescription from eye exam, but they'd do those there too. I was in, chose some frames, had my stuff done in about 45 minutes. 3 frames - one was $$ because I chose rimless, but I got 2 backup pairs as well - total cost was a bit under $200. Had I not chosen rimless, and just got the 'regular' basic frames... would have been ~$60?.

They had a deal at that time too - $99 for exam and one frame/lens set, done in a couple hours.

They're fine - have worn every day for 3 years. No 'insurance' to worry about.

Was it Jins?

looking now I think it was eyemart express. I'd lost my glasses the day before and had a long trip coming up the next day (driving). I mostly use the glasses for driving, and couldn't find anyone who could necessarily guarantee same day service - had called some of the usual places that advertise that and got "well, maybe, we're backed up, call back this afternoon, etc". eyemart was, I think, relatively new at that location, so wasn't backed up.

There are. From Zenni Optical (https://www.zennioptical.com/) you can order a pair of no-frill glasses for less than $10 if your prescription isn't too crazy (so you don't need high-index lens), and you're okay waiting for a couple of weeks for shipping.

However, it's not for everyone. For one, it's out of network for insurance providers, so you have to deal with paperwork yourself and the deductible is high. Also since they are online only, you have to adjust it yourself, which isn't always easy. And being online only means you can't try it on beforehand.

Eye glasses are a textbook example of something that should not be sold under "insurance".

Enough people lack the financial literacy to understand the difference between risk and recurring costs.

Unfortunately, nobody wants to change this because insurers love charging premium rates for low risk recurring costs, providers love obscuring their prices, and consumers have come to demand their insurance covers “the basics”.

>(so you don't need high-index lens) Can you elaborate on this a bit? I've been thinking about getting my next pair or glasses from Zenni but I need high index lenses.

You can get decent high index lenses from them for $60, and they have $10 frames.

I actually got a pair of prescription tinted (as in sunglass tint) aviator high-index frames w/ lenses for about $110.

There was a site, myopticalshop.com that could do high-index rimless for $150, I haven’t checked in awhile, though.

[edit]

So, the rimless frames are $50 and 1.74 index lenses are an additional $129.

They have various high-index lens options, but they cost more, so it won't be $10.

Zenni is ok but adding a simple thing like polarization can double the cost.

Maybe you didn't realize how much more polarized lenses cost to make previously because the price was so inflated.

Polarized lenses run over $30 with zenni, that is more than many frames on the site.

You can get polarized glasses from Amazon for $20.

Zenni gets you in the door with a low base price then slams you with the add ons.

Because polarized lenses cost more to make. Which means Zinni has to pay more. Also, depending on the Rx and frame combination, they can be a little more complicated to manufacture as well.

If you have a reasonable Rx, Zinni are likely using finished lenses. Polarized have to been surfaced in the lab.

Also, in my experience Zenni doesn't necessarily make the polarized lenses to adequate tolerances. I ordered a pair of aviators with polarized lenses and there were such severe pressure points around the rim that it distorted the polarization across almost the entire surface of the lenses. It made the polarization coating basically worthless, and I had to return them to order a non-polarized pair for half the price.

Yes. If the lenses are too large (circumference) too much pressure will be placed on the lenses and they’ll do just as you describe. Certain materials (polycarbonate) will actually crack in the same situation.

Still way cheaper than even getting a non-polarized from like Warby.

Because employers are subsidizing their employee's eye insurance, which is owned by Luxottica, and only usable at Luxottica's shops.

Ultimately even with insurance it is often cheaper to go outside of Luxottica's network, but many people don't even check and just assume that because they have reduced cost "insurance" that it will be cheaper to stay within Luxottica's spiderweb.

The way you solve this is to split up Luxottica via strong competition controls. Have one retail giant and one eye insurance company, not one monolith doing both.

(Former Luxottica Employee):

Luxottica owns EyeMed, which isn't VSP.

Luxottica just purchased Essilor -- so, now, one company handles the insurance, frames, and lenses...turning it into a bigger monster.

The nice thing is, you still get big discounts on glasses with VSP. So when I buy absurdly expensive Bellinger carbon fiber frames, I get something like $120 off the top plus another 20% discount. And I'm not enriching Luxottica.

Every optic has to be custom fit to a frame grinding the frame’s shape around the individuals specific fit.

This also already exists with companies like zenni optical.

Startups do all the time via the internet, and they are growing, but the issue is getting involved with insurance companies and optometrists. It's not as complete a monopoly as one may be led to believe, but Luxottica still does control a large portion of the market.

See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-luxottica-own-80-of-t...

That page badly needs an update.

No mention that Luxottica merged with Essilor a year or two back. Essilor are mainly lenses, but also have a range of premium and designer frame brands they bought. EssilorLuxottica has a huge portion of the resulting market. No idea if it gets near or past 80% now, but they're a $50bn company.

Don’t know about the US, but I always get my glasses in France and it’s 10euro there (lunettepourtous)