eye doctor impressed with my Zenni Optical glasses

I'm going the Zenni route on my next pair, I'm figuring on a regular pair and one pair at about +1.5 or so (or the 2nd pair as bifocals, if they have 'em).

Dave

I've bought about six pairs of eyeglasses from Zenni. Their prices are low, their shipping was fairly rapid, the Rx appears spot-on, and there have been no problems with my orders. (yeah, they do bifocals, progressives, tints, etc.)

Should have mentioned, that mine were bifocals, slight tint, anti-reflective coating and memory titanium frames. Probably one of their more expensive offerings. Zenni is in California but glasses are made in China, so the savings are in labor.

There's nothing quite as satisfying as supporting communists and slave labor to have a couple dollars.

Anyway, since everybody here has a job, it's no big deal to just write checks out to Mao.

My wife likes hers. She just recently went to bi-focals and the store pair was almost 500 bucks. Went through Zenni and ordered a pair of progressive light tint. Flex frames and light tint.

When they came we both got a shock. The frames were the exact same ones she bought locally other than the color, she wanted a different color to make it easy to tell them apart (one pair is work/other is normal wear) The lenses are as good as the others but they don't have the photo gray option. Took them into the optometrist and he looked them over and tested them on the machine as well. Came out with a worried look because they were actually better lenses than the expensive Nikons with the way they were ground!

Not bad when you consider a 400.00 savings!!!

You'll pay for it in other ways.

Chinese may be communists but their economy is more capitalist than ours today.

I too, believe in supporting the local US economy, but we're talking about $300 here. If equal quality and cost, I would buy here, hands down.

Now, looking at glasses case of last glasses bought here, $350, little label says, "Made in China". I'm not lying. Go look at yours.

Same product made by the same people- just cuttin' out the middleman. Try and find some US made glasses and let us know where to get 'em.

Dave

I understand. No judgement here.

Individuals have to do what they believe is right.But taking advantage of less expensive foreign labor will not increase competition in the US. Once the money leaves the US it can no longer be used to bolster the American economy.

Eyeglass frames have been monopolized by a few foreign manufacturers for many years. They're grossly overpriced.

Some products like pharmaceuticals are artificially high in the US because the US government forbids importing cheaper drugs or buying them directly from foreign sources.

Our goal should be to manufacture and sell everything possible within the US. Self-sufficiency is necessary to a stable economy.

Many people fell compelled to keep parrotting the same bullshit about "the cheaper labor is the reason all this Chinese stuff cost less". What a huge crock of shit. I gotta wonder if that's all the more complex their reasoning skills are.

Optometrists couldn't make a living in the US if they charged what their services are actually worth and the customers didn't pay insurance for eyeglass coverage.. so play the "stick it to the insurance company" game to be a good consumer. The mall locations or office suites, the various employees that basically do very little, the expensive optical equipment and general overhead expenses/taxes wouldn't allow them to make a profit if they weren't selling $40 eyeglasses for $350 or more.

What the Chinese sellers aren't paying for, is what makes their businesses profitable.. no TV commercials, hundreds of flashy magazine ads, mall locations or custom suites and brand-name recognition are a few of the reasons. The Chinese are proving what eyeglasses really are.. wire and plastic/glass lenses.

Looking at inexpensive reading glasses (about $8US) you may see the spring-tensioned hinges and adequate fabricating techniques.. the only difference is the grind of the lenses, excluding all the add-on stuff that make doctor-selected glasses more profitable.

The lenses and frames are very likely CNC machine made.. so after the machines are set up/fed with material, the actual assembly and packaging time for a pair of glasses may be 10 minutes.. probably less.

The domestic assembly labs are very likey getting frames and lens blanks from the same Chinese plants, although probably thru different distributors who apply a brand name to the the frames and place them in fancier boxes.

Somewhere in the supply chain, someone is claiming that their components are better quality because they're being made to their exact specifications.

Unless there are some legal/trade restrictions for optometrists, they could just be faxing the prescriptions and specific eyeglass features to a Chinese factory, and receiving the finished product in a few days.

Where isn the world do you think your local optometrist gets his glasses? Even the "Italian" designer frames are made in China. Pearle Vision, Target Optical, Sunglass Hut, Rayban, Lenscrafters (and some others I can't remember, but you could google it) are ALL owned by the same company, and they buy their stuff in China. All they do at the store is grind the shape of the lenses to math the frames, and snap them in. Hardly $500 worth of labor.

Do I think this is a good situation? Of course not. But this is not a matter of cheap labor. It's a matter of greedy big companies raping their customers.

I'll buy you a one way ticket to china anytime. Let me know when you're packed and ready to go.

All the legends are worn off mine, but I'm pretty sure they were made in japan or italy, and they for sure have glass lenses by my request. They cost less than $350 too, and for a screwy prescriptio. Unless you're getting some big deal designer frames and $5 plastic lenses with $200 of those scam upsell worthless coatings, glasses to don't have to cost a fortune. They can also cost as much as you can spend too.

You're confusing snapping lenses that are all exactly the same into the frames that are the same that permit reading glasses off the drugstore rack to sell for $8 vs. aligning prescription lenses with the frames, grinding the sides off and then any other work like drilling holes or attaching the fishing line stuff. Since everybody picks different frames and has different scrips, each job is really a one-off.

Obviously chinese school children are cheaper at doing this than even illegals in the US.

So instead of giving an extra $5 to the chinese red army and whatever commie front they use in california, I'd rather keep as much of the money and jobs here.

Nobody seems to give a hoot about these things until it's their job that's been cut. Then it's some big deal somehow.

Gunner Asch on Sun, 09 Oct 2011 01:54:02 -0700 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

And necessary.