Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 317 posts

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

#61

Post by Someone1234 »

wbracken wrote: post #48
bigdubs wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The share of incomes from private businesses (especially luxury businesses) isn't flat and benefits mostly the executives and directors and shareholders.

How can you say that? Luxottica employs 85,000 people. Do those people obtain no benefit from employment?

If there was healthy competition that same number of jobs may be split over multiple companies, but it would still have to exist since the market for the product itself wouldn't change.

That isn't an argument for not breaking up a monopoly. Only an argument that the market may be big enough to support actual competition.

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

#62

Post by pedasmith »

I dipped my toe into the "online glasses" market -- and let me say it's a game-changer. The eyeglass store wanted about $300 per frame, meaning that I'd grudgingly get one pair.

The online purchase was only $75 for high-end frames and coatings, plus $27 for three pairs of prescription "computer monitor" glasses (one for the office, one for the home office, one for the other home office!). And by having more pairs, I can bring a pair on trips, just in case the main ones get broken!

(Personally, I've also never had any useful help in picking out frames. I'm not very fashion conscious, and every time the help doesn't seem to want to actually help be find frames that would look good on my face)

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

#63

Post by Animats »

walterbell wrote: post #51
Animats wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a useful program someone in the HN/YC universe could write - something that uses your computer or phone camera to measure your interpupillary distance. This is a bit tricky to do yourself with a ruler and a mirror. Just have the user take a selfie while holding some object of known dimensions on their forehead. Like a dollar bill. Find the eyes and pupils (OpenCV can do that), find the reference object, calcul…

Some of these apps exist, but none are as accurate as a ruler and two post-it notes with a pinhole. If Apple opens up the depth sensor on the iPhone camera, such apps will be more accurate.

The trouble with do it yourself measurement of the distance between eyes is that it's done with eyes that need glasses, without wearing them. You need a second person or hardware.

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

#64

Post by mLuby »

Money quote: >“Federal officials fell asleep at the wheel,” Dahan said. “They should never have allowed all these companies to roll into one. It destroyed competition.” Butler said it should be clear from EssilorLuxottica’s practices that the company has too much market power. “If that’s not a monopoly,” he said, “I don’t know what is.”

Where's the public outrage? Maybe because they're foreign companies? Maybe because the price crept up slowly over time? Maybe because glasses are tied to the medical industry where consumers have come to accept absurd prices? :(

Worth noting there's always some markup for brick-and-mortar locations, and for something people like to try on before buying that's (was) a big deal.

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

#65

Post by ourmandave »

jasode wrote: post #8

I was able to slash my eyeglasses expenditures in both the exams and the frames: eye exams: I used to pay the optometrist $153 ($117 refraction + $36 dilation). I later found out that Costco often has an optometrist on site in a tiny office and will charge just $59 (and add +$20 for dilation). That's less than half the cost of most other optometrists. frames: switched to Zenni online to avoid the LensCrafters/Pearle/…

This same discussion on HN a couple months ago convinced me to try Zenni.

I replaced my $300 walmart progressives with better for $80 and that includes shipping.

That's less than my monthly cell phone bill. It's like my glasses went from sacred to disposable.

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

#66

Post by walterbell »

Eyebuydirect is notable because:

- US based

- Small premium over Hong Kong (Zenni)

- Essilor lenses (similar to LensCrafters)

- Wide frame selection, some are clones of designer frames which cost 20x

- 2 week refund/replace for any reason

- No prescription needed

Their human customer service seems to be in Malaysia, so CS interactions via voice or email can take a few iterations, but are usually resolved within a few days.

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

#67

Post by wbracken »

cazum wrote: post #58
wbracken wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say that? Luxottica employs 85,000 people. Do those people obtain no benefit from employment?

What? Nobody is claiming that they don't. What is being claimed is that the majority of those employees are not seeing an increased benefit (wages) proportional to the increased profits of the company they work for, whereas shareholders and executives do.

https://www.businessinsider.com/esop-essilor-employee-shareh...

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

#68

Post by iknowordidthat »

glitchc wrote: post #46

I respectfully must disagree with all of the claims here regarding zenni and costco, unpopular as it may be. They are only comparable at the low end but have no matching product at the high end. I bought a pair of glasses at costco for $200 as a backup to my daily rimless wearers. First, costco and zenni don’t have any rimless options. Second, the lenses I did buy ( partial frame) were their lightest but still signif…

Zenni has rimless glasses for years.

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

#69

Post by igivanov »

jasode wrote: post #8

I was able to slash my eyeglasses expenditures in both the exams and the frames: eye exams: I used to pay the optometrist $153 ($117 refraction + $36 dilation). I later found out that Costco often has an optometrist on site in a tiny office and will charge just $59 (and add +$20 for dilation). That's less than half the cost of most other optometrists. frames: switched to Zenni online to avoid the LensCrafters/Pearle/…

Is it in the US? In Canada Costco prescription glasses are horribly expensive.

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

#70

Post by galangalalgol »

caymanjim wrote: post #43

Lens Crafters charges a huge markup if you want their lenses put into your own frames. It's almost cheaper to buy new frames from them (and in the case of particularly-expensive lenses, it is in fact cheaper to buy new frames). That's clearly a scam. Warby Parker sells glasses at more reasonable prices, but their frames are god-awful hideous tortoiseshell plastic abominations. If you want nice metal frames, they have…

The reason WP has the tortise she'll is they are both cheaper and in style. Metal is for old people or so my spouse tell me.
Post reply on HN