Five Cent Dime

I have had a link to  Zenni Optical www.zennioptical.com since the beginning now, but no one I knew had ever actually tried out their products. I did have quite a bit of reference about the company from the Clark Howard radio show, in which many callers have mentioned either loving the company or absolutely hating them. To be fair, it seems there is a competing site called Eye Buy Direct www.eyebuydirect.com where the glasses are as low as $7.95 each. I have heard no feedback and have no experience with them although I presume they are very similar in their methods, costs and customer service (let me know if i’m wrong!).

You can get a full pair of prescription glasses at Zenni for $8, and the more features you add the more expensive it gets. It sounds as if no matter what you do, you will end up saving between 65-90% off most prescription glass purchases.

My wife just last week received her first set of Zenni glasses and she loves them! She did mention that if she had been in a store she likely wouldn’t have picked them for their looks, but they are cheap, it was easy to get them and had very fast delivery. I think all in hers cost around $25 or so after $4.95 shipping and a special coating she added on. She just mentioned she is going to get another pair from Zenni but this time will only get the $8 ones and pay the $4.95 shipping. For a comparable pair of glasses to the ones my wife got may have cost $100-$200 depending on where you shop.

One key thing to think about though, is that you do have to have a valid prescription, you have to have proper measurements between your eyes (optometrist can do this or you can), and it seems that everything may be outsourced to a foreign country in order to provide these prices. If you are okay with that, order a primary or a backup pair right away.

If you don’t like how they look once you get them, or if they are cut incorrectly, you can get a 50% refund within 4 weeks at Zenni, and a 100% refund (both companies do not refund shipping costs) at Eye Buy Direct within 7 days of receipt of the frames. If you bought the $8 glasses and get the wrong ones, paying to ship them back to either company and then $4.95 more shipping for them to re-ship to you will cancel out the benefits of the return.

Even if you primarily or only wear contact lenses, at these prices it may just be worth it to have a backup pair in case you ever get an eye infection or you run out of lenses.

I hope I have provided a small nugget of information that you can use to SAVE A TON on your prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 11:26 AM and is filed under Deals, Questions & Advice, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.