hey what's up this is Dr. Allen here and today i'm going to help you decide if you should buy
your next pair of glasses from a local in-store glasses shop or if you should try buying glasses
online from home. now i've been working in eye clinics for the last 10 years and online
glasses have been a growing trend instead of just making assumptions i've been buying and testing
out online glasses brands for the last year and a half comparing things like accuracy and quality to
both the online glasses versus the ones that i've gotten in store. now i do plan to do
official reviews on a lot of these brands that i've tried but if you want to learn a little
bit more about them specifically i'll put links in the description below so you can find those.
otherwise there's a lot of pros and cons to buying prescription glasses online versus the
in-store ones and if you're sitting on the fence and you're not sure what's best for you here's
what i found. now the main and number one reason people choose to buy online glasses is because
they are cheaper and that is true on average most online glasses brands are much more affordable
than just buying from a local in-store shop in the eye clinics i've seen prices of glasses go
from as cheap as 80 US dollars but as expensive as over a thousand US dollars for a single frame
and lenses but they usually are higher end frames as well as some of the best ophthalmic lenses
that you can possibly buy for your eyes with the average cost of prescription glasses for around
250 US dollar mark now online glasses are all over the place i've seen them go as cheap as 10 US
dollars all the way up to over 700 US dollars but again this all largely depends on what type
of frame and lenses you choose to buy are you looking for the absolute bottom of the barrel
just basic thing or do you want something that's going to be a higher quality with all the extra
bells and whistles anti-reflectives on the lenses that's this green color thing you see shining off
the front of my lenses here all those extra things that are of course going to drive that
price higher up but even with all of that most online glasses do go for on average i would say
about 125 us dollars for a decent pair of glasses next up is accuracy and honestly this was probably
my biggest concern going into all of this trying these different online pairs of glasses because
historically online glasses have had a bad rap for making mistakes and there's even some consumer
report studies claiming that it's only about a 50% accurate when you're buying online and i
can say that from my own experience prescribing lenses for patients that buy glasses online and
come back i have had a few patients who just have completely wrong prescription even one patient who
was a negative one in real life but their glasses they came in with were a plus one
that is a two diopter difference and a pretty big deal and I guarantee you almost every eye
doctor out there will have a story like that but in my experience trying out at least 10
different brands at this point almost every single one has been very accurate except for one brand
which I don't even think they sent me the right pair of glasses because it was a different frame
wrong lenses everything i honestly think they sent me somebody else's pair of glasses and thankfully
for me I can verify prescription lenses in the eye clinic using what's called a lensometer and again
i would say probably 90 of the time the glasses i've had have been accurate and work great but
just to be precise the lenses that i've been getting have been single vision distance lenses
none of the lenses i've tried have been bifocal or progressive and we're getting into those type of
lenses i honestly wouldn't recommend anybody buy progressive or bifocal glasses online
just because there's a lot of extra measurements that have to go into those
type of lenses and almost all patients i've had that have bought progressive lenses online
have eventually come back and bought prescription lenses from us because uh they had such a poor
experience with the online ones i will eventually have a video going more in depth about progressive
lenses so if you're new to the channel hit that subscribe button so that hopefully you'll never
miss that one but of course when it does come to accuracy buying from a local store not only
do we send it to manufacturer who verifies that they're making the prescription lenses correctly
usually at least twice then they send the lenses back to us and then we verify again before we
dispense it to the patient and if there's ever a problem then we take the time to fix it so
you can pretty much guarantee the accuracy that you're going to be getting those lenses
that are going to be right on the mark now next up we're talking quality and when i say quality
i'm talking about the quality and durability of both of the frames as well as the lenses because
when you're talking about glasses you have both the frame and the lenses two different things
the build and durability is a little difficult to compare from one brand to the next because there's
so many different designs out there different plastics different metals different hinge designs
but i will say in general i've noticed this a bit higher quality in the builds and durability of the
ones you get from an in-store optical the online glasses i've seen go all over the place from
bottom of the barrel just almost they don't work at all they fall apart to ones that are
actually pretty good quality and I know the eye doctors out there may not be happy to hear that
uh that there are brands of online glasses that hold up and are pretty on par compared
to a lot of the stuff that we have in the clinic however again i have seen some online brands that
really fall short in the quality department i've had one brand that sent me a temple arm that was
longer on one side versus the other and i even have this brand here that i don't know it creaks.
i've never seen that before! So again you'll probably find a little better quality
buying from a local glasses shop especially if they have independent frame lines that are made by
hand or have some sort of special patent on their soldering technology cool things like that however
again if you're shopping for it and you're willing to take the chance you may find some good quality
frames buying online now as far as the quality of the lenses go and this is again the clear part
that you're seeing through and it's honestly what i personally value the most i will say that online
glasses most of them the lenses are pretty decent and they're okay i would never say that any of the
glasses i've tried so far have bad lenses but i will say that the ones you get from the in-store
are usually a cut above the ones that you get online with the in-store opticals you
can get specialty lenses ones from shamir, zeiss, kodak and essilor if you've never heard of these
brands that's okay they're just some of the best ophthalmic lens manufacturers in the world making
of course glasses lenses to camera lenses like the one i'm shooting this video with to telescope
lenses even when it comes to the lens treatments like anti-reflectors or non-glare coatings like
the ones i'm wearing here are from our optical and this is some of the best anti-reflective you can
get and you can't even barely see this huge light that i'm using to make this video or if i go back
to these online glasses it's there's still a good anti-reflective but you can still see that light a
lot better than what you can see when i'm wearing these higher end lenses now outside of the price
and the accuracy and quality differences here i would say that the biggest difference that
you'll have shopping online versus in-store is going to come from your purchasing experience
and the services that you get from whoever you're buying them from and this is where in my opinion
where the true benefit of shopping locally comes from when shopping online there can be a benefit
of having many different glasses options at your disposal there's even some sites with almost over
7000 different frames on them which can be really nice if you like shopping around but i personally
have also been rather overwhelmed by having like too many choices where i just can't make
up my mind with local stores you may still have many options but you only have the options that
are right in front of you on the frame board but you do have the positive advantage of being able
to try on those frames to see not only do they look good on you but are they comfortable to
wear and you really don't get that experience shopping online there are online companies now
that are doing take home try on boxes where you get like four or five different frames sent out
to you however i have noticed that not all frames on their websites and sizes are available for you
to try them on at home so there is that chance you still may not be able to find anything that
you really like i think a huge advantage of shopping at a local store is having access to
local clinical staff and opticians who are trained and experienced in finding not only frames that
are going to look good and fit well for you that they're comfortable but also finding lenses that
are going to work well with your prescription and those frames because if you have something
like a large or unique glasses prescription then not every glasses frame is going to work well
with that prescription in addition there are many different types of lenses materials and
special coatings some of which are better for some prescriptions versus others online glasses brands
i've seen some of them have many of these options but they usually don't go into go to detail and
they don't help you out figure out what's really going to be best for you and your prescription
and i find that if you're not super familiar with all the different lens types it could be confusing
there's even some online glasses brands i've seen that don't give you any options at all they just
give you one lens material one lens coating that's it in that case if you have a high prescription
your lenses are gonna be like super thick and potentially even dangerous on your face
where again is the local brick and mortar shop your opticians can help you navigate what lens
materials are going to be right for you as well as any sort of vision benefits that may cover a
certain lens versus another that way you know what you're getting and you won't have any surprises
now i did do a recent video about different glasses lens technologies if you want to know more
about those different materials and some pros and cons of them i do encourage you whenever you're
buying your glasses whether online or from a local store check out that video to at least understand
more of what your options are another additional benefit of buying glasses from a local shop is for
adjustments believe it or not when you first get glasses straight out of the case they never
usually fit perfectly because most people's ears are not perfectly centered and usually your eyes
aren't even really centered correctly so going in to get your glasses professionally adjusted
is something i highly recommend in fact there's even an online glasses brand called Warby Parker
that offers a rebate up to 50 US dollars for going into a local shop and having them professionally
adjusted it matters that much some local stores may adjust your glasses for free but because
it does take time and skill expertise a lot of clinics that I know are doing small charges for
those little adjustments if you've never purchased glasses from them before now just for some final
thoughts if you are choosing to buy glasses online I personally don't care i just want you
to be seeing your best i think if you're trying to save money you can definitely go that route
i've even had some patients who choose to buy their glasses online just the frame not the lenses
you can do that they're called like your fashion line or fashion frame where they don't give you
any lenses in them but then they take those online frames and they come into the store to get lenses
from our clinic put into them so it's kind of like the best of both worlds in a way i will say if you
decide to do that make sure you call your local clinic and ask them that they're able to do that
because some clinics don't have the ability to make their own lenses and put them into frames but
i had a few patients do that I thought it was kind of cool that way they kind of get again the best
of both worlds a little bit cheaper on the frame but they get all the nice benefits and services
and the nice lenses from us so again kind of cool otherwise whether you like this video or not
let me know in the comments what your thoughts are about online glasses is it something that
you've had good experience with maybe not if you work in an eye clinic what are your thoughts about
it drop all those comments in the section below i'd love to hear your thoughts otherwise if you
found this video helpful hit that like button for me because it is going to help me out subscribe
to the channel if you'd like to learn more about your vision eyes all that cool stuff again this is
Dr. Allen here from the Doctor Eye Health show keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon