Can you explain this?

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hepburn

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Would someone please tell me why a decent pair of specs costs as much as a half decent lens? After all, it's only 2 "elements" and a tiny amount of metal or plastic compared to what goes into a camera lens!

And why is it all the opticians prices are in the same region, give or take a tenner?

:thinking:
 
Because they have high street rates to pay and because they are in business to make profit.

If you don't have a difficult prescription buy your glasses online, I use goggles4u.com and pay in the region of £20-40 a pair. Take your details from the opticians prescription, choose the glasses/lenses/coatings you want and your glasses will be on your doorstep in about a week.
 
fabs said:
Drives me barmy. I use specsavers, which gives me a "fee" pair, but I have varifocals which adds £100 plus the antiglare coating on one pair and the reactions coating on the other. So a pair of specs priced at £100 including a second pair free becomes £300!! :bang:
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Much the same as my own prescription Marc. And how can they justify 3 "types" of varifocals? lol.

I checked out specsavers but didn't see a frame I felt comfortable wearing. Dolland and Aitchensons (sp?) had a really comfy set of frames but looked down their noses at me when i suggested I didn't want to spend more than a couple of hundred quid for 2 pairs. I gave the sales assistance a bit of advice on customer relations and walked out of that store... Boots were very helpful and had the simplest 2 for 1 offer (you get a duplicate of what you pay for) but still wanted best part of 300 quid. Again, I never quite found a frame I felt comfortable wearing. Vision Express seemed to only focus on designer frames which look like a hair band across the eyes style (ala Jordi La Forge from Star Trek), so they didn't really get a look in...
 
Steep said:
Because they have high street rates to pay and because they are in business to make profit.

If you don't have a difficult prescription buy your glasses online, I use goggles4u.com and pay in the region of £20-40 a pair.
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Sounds like a good option but sadly I have a difficult prescription and prefer to have somewhere I can go to if things go wrong. I also like to try out the frames for fit and comfort.
 
fabs said:
So it was back home to make use of some chicken wire and a couple of milk bottle bottoms then. :D
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haha... or carry on squinting...

I did eventually find a pair I liked, at a price I liked, with everything I wanted... Even got clubcard points with them... :lol:
 
Its because people NEED glasses.

They can charge what they want.

What I cant understand is why a sigma 10-20 is 3 or 4 times the price of a 70-300 ...

Similar amounts of glass and plastic there, maybe even less in the 10-20 ?
 
Borats Baby said:
Its because people NEED glasses.

They can charge what they want.
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Shouldn't be allowed... :)

Here's another thing i've just realised. When I was looking at frames it was only the more expensive ones (£90+ usually) which had spring loaded legs. So until now i've been managing with off the shelf reading specs. My current pair cost me about £6 and guess what, they have spring loaded legs! Go figure... :shrug:

It's a rip off if you ask me...
 
Tis a big rip off for frames. The mark up opticians have to charge with the opticians fees and the number of sales people in a branch means you are always going to pay alot. On the flip side, they do pay for some of the opticians fees, so you get a cheap eye exam....
 
I have a little girl she needs glasses as her eyes are so bad she is classed as blind it cost me £145 to get her last pair and that excludes a voucher I claimed for her most of the cost was to get the lens thinned as they are so thick the glass touched her eye lashes She breaks hers about 3 times a year and we have to pay each time
Bob
 
lawrie29 said:
Tis a big rip off for frames. The mark up opticians have to charge with the opticians fees and the number of sales people in a branch means you are always going to pay alot. On the flip side, they do pay for some of the opticians fees, so you get a cheap eye exam....
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Some of the frames costing costing 3 figures are no better in quality than the frames in a decent pair of reading glasses !!.

And speaking of the professionalism of the opticians Jon, I had glasses made up for night driving at Dolland & Aitchinsons, the frames were twisted, they had three goes at getting them straight I called a halt at the fourth attempt as by then they had carelessly damaged the hinges and the heads on the screws. They got it right after ordering new frames. I would never use D&A again!!.
 
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lawrie29 come live in Scotland, you get eye tests free :)

I've used spex4less before too but they are also expensive compared to the many other online suppliers (and they never leave you alone afterwards! bloody emails every second week).
 
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