I’ve seen a pair of Oakley prescription specs in the local opticians and unsurprisingly, have seen web sites offering them at large discounts V the high street – as in, you enter the details off a recent prescription and they mail you the made up glasses.

Anyone bought specs online in this way, if so who did you use and were they any good (specs and service)?

Cheers in advance

PL

Yep, buy all my prescription glasses / sunglasses online.

Get my sunglasses from http://www.Optilabs.co.uk and normal glasses from http://www.onestopeyecare.co.uk

Both were excellent and will use them again.

I got my Oakleys online from http://www.fashioneyewear.co.uk and they were massively cheaper than anywhere else I could find on the high street.

I’m all for supporting local shops, but when the glasses I wanted were just less than half the price of the cheapest high street optician, I had no choice but to shop online.

Their service was really good to, email updates, and a phone call to let me know when things were sorted and it had been dispatched. Plus a phone call to check everything was ok once they arrived.

And the odd thing was, they were also faster than the optician in town would have been.

what is your prescription, read the small print if it is anything a little unusual. You may find they won’t help.

If it helps i found a set of Oakley transistors on clearance for £125 at a high street optician which are being glazed to my prescription. So have a wander around you never know what yoy may find.

what is your prescription, read the small print if it is anything a little unusual. You may find they won’t help.

All the ones I tried, you input your prescription to get the price/quote.

The only tricky part of buying glasses online is the pupil distance, which most opticians don’t give you, but you need for glasses. But you can do it yourself relatively easily.

i just got a pair of oakley servos in this way. got my prescription sorted on a free offer at specsavers, then bought my glasses from http://www.eyewearbrands.com for less than half the cost of the cheapest i could find in a physical shop. they took about 10 days from submitting my prescription for me to get the glasses, but i have no complaints. they’re ace.

All the ones I tried, you input your prescription to get the price/quote.

and on a few if you read the small print they do mention not doing certain prescriptions.

one example of what i mean.

I know what you mean, what I was getting at was that if you stick to places that ask for your prescription before quoting, then they will let you know if there is an issue as they won’t quote outside their set range.

fair enough,

What frames are you going for? I’ve got a pair of Tumbler frames which I got online.

I had a load of problems getting mine adjusted to fit my head and they still fall off far too easily. In fact, I’d recommend not buying any Oakley prescription frames that don’t have traditional ear hooks or at least rubber grippers like their sunglasses.

I had problems with my pupil distance so I went to specsavers and for 18 quid they gave me a full prescription with my pupil distance.

Then I went to Optilabs to get some riding glasses. Normally I’d have gone to my opticians but they

a) wouldn’t give me my pupil distance
and
b) couldn’t provide oakleys in anything even close to my prescription.

On my third pair of Oakley in a month. First pair of Cross Link pretty much destroyed my nose, second pair were warped, so I have gone for the Cross Link Switch instead. Did look at buying on line, but my prescription is a bit mental.

Probably got lucky as it seems that my face is having difficulty supporting Oakley frames. These new ones don’t fit right either 😥

i just got some from speckyfoureyes.com
money off voucher from moneysavingexpert, ended up paying £22!

how would you know if you look good on their frames? is it possible to ask them to send the frame first and see if it fits and looks ok?

Some places let you order multiple frames to try on. Can’t recall the name, but my other half did that and chose that her latest pair that way. Quick turn around too.

how would you know if you look good on their frames? is it possible to ask them to send the frame first and see if it fits and looks ok?

I tried on loads when I went for my eye test, so i knew what I wanted, I had every intention of buying from the opticians but when I saw the price difference there was no way was I going to do it.

Would have been £408 from my Optician with standard coatings.
Online they were £199 with the top end coatings including delivery.

I brought from these two months back Eyewearbrands.com
Great service and saved over £ 130 if I went with vision express.

Vision Express = cheap lenses / coatings

I got a refund on a pair after the coatings ‘crazed’ after a couple of weeks.

It seems they are using cheap lenses to cut costs.

Make sure you can return them if you don’t get on with them. Some people don’t get on with a very curved lens as it alters the prescription as the eye views it.

Pupil Distance (PD) is the thing that’s stopping me ordering at the moment. Most opticians won’t tell you this as a way to try and prevent patients going elsewhere and online. I have a current prescription from Spec Savers, but it does not include PD. Seems like a swizz to me, if they have this data on you, are they not legally obliged to disclose it under data protection laws?

My current (Oakley) day to day prescription glasses were incredibly loose on my head when I first tried them on. The optician took them out back a couple of times to work their magic and now they fit.

The online prices are very tempting – but the fitting thing does put me off a bit

Pupil Distance (PD) is the thing that’s stopping me ordering at the moment.

Get someone else to hold a ruler up to your face and measure it – that’s how my optitian did it. I also took note of what he wrote down and got my missis to try it to check we’d get the same number – we did.

The online prices are very tempting – but the fitting thing does put me off a bit

.

I took mine into an opticians and paid £10 to have them adjusted.

They were happy to do it, but charged as they were not bought there.

I saved £200 so was happy to pay 🙂

PL- i had the same issue and when i rang specsavers to ask about it, they told me they don’t measure it until you’re actually being fitted for glasses as it’s not part of the actual prescription the eye test gives you.
it’s dead easy to measure though (and tbh not a deal breaker anyway)- the ruler method works fine, or if you have an existing pair of gegs then just put them on, get someone to mark the lenses with a (non-permanent!) marker pen where your pupils are when looking straight ahead then measure that.
apparently the average (and this is true for most people) is 63mm (mine was 62) unless you’re ryan giggs or something (who is about 13mm, it would seem).

PD is a two second thing, take a photo with your phone of a ruler across your forehead. Stick photo up on screen and draw two vertical lines down from the ruler across the pupils. Difference in measurement off ruler is PD.

I just rang boots and they gave me the PD from when I bought specs from them a few years back – result.

I’ve tried the new specs on in a shop and with high index lenses, coatings, etc, the online price was less than half the high street price. I’m all for supporting local shops, but not paying over £400 for a pair I can get online for £175. Will take a punt for that saving and worst case, get them reglazed.

I’ve tried the new specs on in a shop and with high index lenses, coatings, etc, the online price was less than half the high street price. I’m all for supporting local shops, but not paying over £400 for a pair I can get online for £175. Will take a punt for that saving and worst case, get them reglazed.

That’ll be because the optician has to invest in approx £100k of testing equiptment that the online spec sellers don’t have to

sight test cost = £10-30 depends on where you get it done
sight test cost to optician = £65-70……

is it any wonder they need a mark up on frames/lenses to survive?

I have had 3 sets of Oakleys from Iris Optical, they have been very good and helpful, they also have a store in London which matches there online prices if you are near there..
really good service from them and will be using them again.

That’ll be because the optician has to invest in approx £100k of testing equiptment that the online spec sellers don’t have to

sight test cost = £10-30 depends on where you get it done
sight test cost to optician = £65-70……

is it any wonder they need a mark up on frames/lenses to survive?

If I was in that business, (and what you have said was true) then I would drop the sight tests part of the business??

If its costing them more than double what they can charge for it, it doesn’t make sense to keep doing it.

Just have a shop that sells frames and lenses, cheaper than everyone else on the high street because you aren’t losing a fortune offering a service at a massive loss.

and who would then do sight tests?

and who would then do sight tests?

i guess the only way is to move to a model where sight tests aren’t subsidised by specs and the nhs pays the true price of sight tests where appropriate…

wont happen, b4 my time some idiot negotiated the nhs contract that way now we all suffer for it

I’ve bought frames and then had them glazed by cilary blue, sent them an old pair of specs they got the pd from that. They have been brilliant when I had a problem with a pair of sports glasses insert they changed the prescription as the lenses were closer to me eyes all free of charge can’t recommend them enough