Glasses Sold for 1000% Profit

[bob_builder]

There were a number of reports in todays newspapers about the fact that glasses are sold at up to 1000% profit by the big optician chains.

This shocked me as I knew they were making a pretty good profit, but not that much!

Anyway, the reports went on to mention a website that has been set up by a student (who has now become a millionaire) that is selling glasses at a more reasonable 100% profit.

I thought that members might find this useful - I certainly will be considering using its services for my next pair of glasses. The only thing is they do not sell any "designer" frames as they are being refused business by the designer frame companies because they do not want to upset the likes of Specsavers, etc. so I guess it will not appeal to the fashion conscious!

[bopdude]

Thanks for the info, was about to go to specsavers tomorrow as they have an offer on the eye test, probably would have bought their glasses if not for this thread, I will have to look at another source, maybe even the linked one

[sherer]

yes i do think the whole glasses \ contact lenses thing is a con.. i paid about £200 for a frame before they had even put the lenses in.. i don't mind paying for the lenses as they make them scratch proof,, thinner than they used to be etc and that is specialised but for a tiny bit of metal in a shape they are overpriced..

contact lenses are just as bad.. basically they are water and they cost several hundred as well.. the raw material is hardly the most expensive in the world

[Gareth]

Wow - brilliant. I was about to say I would have been interested except that it's an online store, and for my glasses, I'd rather buy 'em in a bricks and mortar store, so they can be set-up properly and taken back for more tweaking until they're right.... but then I saw that they're based in Malmesbury, which is where I grew up and only down the road from where I'm living now

Originally Posted by bob_builder

a student (who has now become a millionaire)

Maybe I should look up the details of the person running it.... maybe I went to school with him.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by sherer

contact lenses are just as bad.. basically they are water and they cost several hundred as well.. the raw material is hardly the most expensive in the world

I agree glasses can be over priced, saying that I don;t think the £100 I paid for my last pair was too bad. They were from Specsavers, they have a "reactions" coating and fit me perfectly (thanks to the loverly woman that fitted them.

As for contacts, I have the continuous wear ones from Ciba, they are great and well worth the money. I buy them from the states and even with shipping and import duty (and adding the £36 for my aftercare at Specsavers) they are cheaper then buying them in the UK. This annoys me something chronic but thats the UK all over, companies like to screw us, we're so quaint. All in all I pay about £180 a year for my lenses and aftercare not bad really, a saving of about £120 on buying them here in the UK!

Saying that I don't begrudge the cost, they let me see and I get to wear them 24/7. I guess most of the cost must go toward the R&D involved in developing the lenses and the material, which incidentally was developed specifically for this one type of lens.

[SMHarman]

That is at the Gross Profit level though. On a net basis I’m sure things don’t look as “rose tinted�.

Looking at that site, while the frames they sell are cheap, the lenses don’t look much cheaper. By the time you have added thinner lenses (which are probably not the thinnest lenses), AR, and Anti Scratch (free) the price has gone from £25 to near £100.

As a web based business he needs one location (in the middle of an industrial estate) and is more likely to ensure a steady stream of work for those assembling the glasses.

If such a website put all our opticians out of business, where would we get these sight tests done. A sight test costs about £20. This takes about 30 minutes, so assuming your optician can work back to back all day they earn £280 a day from sight tests, that’s a loss leader to get people in the shop and buying frames and glasses. What this guys site will do ultimately is result in a structural change to the business model of opticians.

Instead of loss leader sight tests, they will be charged at cost / profit, so the cost of the optician, equipment for sight tests, floor space, heat, light etc will be covered by the cost of the test not the frame. You will pay £100 for a test and then pay £80 less for the frames.

This will of course create a massive disincentive for lower income households to have their sight tested regularly and cause more danger on the roads, more cost to the NHS fixing the problems (and of course the secondary problems that can be seen through the general health of the eye).

Also his lenses are fitted on an average placing in the frame. Great in principle, but for anyone with astigmatic correction on their lenses this will result in sub optimal placement of the lens and distorted vision.

My Optician is great, I think I tried pretty much every contact lens in the book when I decided to wear both glasses and lenses (not at the same time). This took numerous sittings etc and I still only paid the standard fee for contact lens prescription, she knows that I cannot wear these for VDU use, so only buy about 3 months supply a year, but they still provide me with full contact lens aftersale service from buying these three boxes (if I bought them on line I would be paying for the aftercare checkups).

It’s a nice idea, but these costs have to be covered somewhere.

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Maybe I should look up the details of the person running it.... maybe I went to school with him.

Here is a link to the article in the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1774

It says the bloke's name is James Murray Wells.

There were better articles in other papers but I cannot find online versions of them

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

That is at the Gross Profit level though. On a net basis I’m sure things don’t look as “rose tinted�.

Looking at that site, while the frames they sell are cheap, the lenses don’t look much cheaper. By the time you have added thinner lenses (which are probably not the thinnest lenses), AR, and Anti Scratch (free) the price has gone from £25 to near £100.

Yes, but the same is true of Specsavers the price goes from the £99 advertised to £250!

Originally Posted by SMHarman

As a web based business he needs one location (in the middle of an industrial estate) and is more likely to ensure a steady stream of work for those assembling the glasses.

Most glasses are made in warehouses and are just sent out to the opticians, in any case, so I see no reason why independent opticians could not make use of this website's services if it is cheaper.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

If such a website put all our opticians out of business, where would we get these sight tests done. A sight test costs about £20. This takes about 30 minutes, so assuming your optician can work back to back all day they earn £280 a day from sight tests, that’s a loss leader to get people in the shop and buying frames and glasses. What this guys site will do ultimately is result in a structural change to the business model of opticians.

Instead of loss leader sight tests, they will be charged at cost / profit, so the cost of the optician, equipment for sight tests, floor space, heat, light etc will be covered by the cost of the test not the frame. You will pay £100 for a test and then pay £80 less for the frames.

This will of course create a massive disincentive for lower income households to have their sight tested regularly and cause more danger on the roads, more cost to the NHS fixing the problems (and of course the secondary problems that can be seen through the general health of the eye).

The sight test is partially subsidised by the NHS but I can see it going up in the coming years, in any case.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Also his lenses are fitted on an average placing in the frame. Great in principle, but for anyone with astigmatic correction on their lenses this will result in sub optimal placement of the lens and distorted vision.

I think (if it is the same thing) you can specify your Pupilary Distance when ordering or choose to use an average PD.

Originally Posted by SMHarman

My Optician is great, I think I tried pretty much every contact lens in the book when I decided to wear both glasses and lenses (not at the same time). This took numerous sittings etc and I still only paid the standard fee for contact lens prescription, she knows that I cannot wear these for VDU use, so only buy about 3 months supply a year, but they still provide me with full contact lens aftersale service from buying these three boxes (if I bought them on line I would be paying for the aftercare checkups).

It’s a nice idea, but these costs have to be covered somewhere.

I fully agree, I trusted my old independent optician and was quite happy paying his prices for his work. However, I have a problem with a large company like Specsavers making a huge profit from me but not offering anywhere near the same level of service.

[andygrif]

1000% profit? I'm sure someone would love to work out how this can happen. I assume you mean 1000% mark-up?

As I don't need glasses at this stage in my life I didn't really know how much they cost in detail, until I went with my partner for her glasses. I was shocked.

I can buy a pair of Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren sunglases for, say, £50-£70 quid. The same frames without lenses (so less physical stuff than I buy from Sunglasses Hut) in an optician is something like £200! Then they charge you another 200 quid to stick a couple of tiny bits of glass in them? It's extortion!

So I went into Watchdog mode and had a look at Costco (where we have a membership already). Better frames (Ralph Lauren) £60. Carl Zeiss coated lenses, £29. Saving £311. They take upto 14 days to arrive back.

Anyone that knows someone with a Costco membership and needs glasses should certainly look at them.

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by andygrif

1000% profit? I'm sure someone would love to work out how this can happen. I assume you mean 1000% mark-up?

They are the Daily Mail's words, not mine. I guess it depends on ones definition of profit.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by bob_builder

They are the Daily Mail's words, not mine. I guess it depends on ones definition of profit.

Ahh well that explains it then! Maybe I should send them my guide to working out percentages.....

Mark up is the percentage increase over the cost of manufacture and supply of goods. eg item costs me £1 to make and I sell it for £11 = 1000% mark-up.

Profit is the portion of the price (in percentage terms this cannot exceed 100%) that is not given to the manufacture and supply of the goods. eg item costs £11 to buy, £1 to supply = 91% profit.

Still that wouldn't make as good a 'shock' headline for Daily Mail readers would it?

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by bob_builder

<snip>Most glasses are made in warehouses and are just sent out to the opticians, in any case, so I see no reason why independent opticians could not make use of this website's services if it is cheaper.
<snip>

The snipped bits I agree with entirely, the bit above though... More opticians (especially the specsavers of the world) are moving to this 1 hr thing which requires in store labs and more untilised time on the equipment > higher cost per use of the equipment. It also requires a stock of most common lenses in each store, increasing the stock held / stock holding costs. Our want it yesterday culture does not help to keep costs down in this respect.

Re the Costco point made [by another poster], Costco have shrewdly put this 14 day turnaround in so their glasses can be assembled in slack time, they are paying less for a non priority service.

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

The snipped bits I agree with entirely, the bit above though... More opticians (especially the specsavers of the world) are moving to this 1 hr thing which requires in store labs and more untilised time on the equipment > higher cost per use of the equipment. It also requires a stock of most common lenses in each store, increasing the stock held / stock holding costs. Our want it yesterday culture does not help to keep costs down in this respect.

Re the Costco point made [by another poster], Costco have shrewdly put this 14 day turnaround in so their glasses can be assembled in slack time, they are paying less for a non priority service.

I absolutely agree with you, if you want your glasses in a hour you should expect to pay a premium for them.

However, if Specsavers expected me to still pay a hefty premium on glasses that are not produced in an hour I would, now, go elsewhere. (I would actually prefer that my glasses where not made by some Saturday assistant in a store in an hour and am quite happy to wait for them.)

[tkiely]

I used to work for a lens maker supplying a large chain with lenses and frames. It is a shocking business, we would buy lens blanks for £1-1.50 each, fit them in frames costing less than £3 and then see the chain sell them at £300+

Unless you need Nikon thins which would cost £50 it would never cost over a tenner for any scrip or coating.

We went bust when the chain decided to build their own lab as they perceived us as a rip off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

$49specs.com is good too

[Stu038]

This 1hr turn around lark is great but I've never managed to get it, there seems to be a different issue each time as to why mine have to be made off site, strange that the prescription hasn't changed for nearly 20 years though.

As for the free second pair or the free prescription sunglasses the offer never seems to be available on the frames I choose and no they're not always the cheapest in the store my last lot cost £250 for anti-scratch coating, lenses and the frames.

I would have no problems paying that sort of money for a personal service from an independent optician if I could find a convenient one around here but I object to paying a corporation with a production line attitude, I for one will definitely be checking out the possibilities of buying them on-line in future.