New to Online Eyeglasses? Click Here!
Ongoing: Click here for 15%-off EVERY ORDER at EyeBuyDirect This is the best ongoing deal on the internet for EyeBuyDirect!
Goggles4U drops prices, drops additional discount codes. People are concerned, but this is still one of the best places to buy online. Link!

As is so often the case, the deals tend to all come at the same time. Within moments of posting the FramesDirect thing, I got notification of another 30%-off sale at Goggles4U. Goggles4U is one of my original retailers from my very first pair of simultaneous orders.

They have a massive selection, and seem to have added even more name-brand closeouts at prices ranging from excellent to less-than-excellent-but-also-less-than-everyone-else.


Check them out and use code "Deal" to get 30%-off for the next 72 or so hours.

I get some email regularly from people who are looking for deals on a particular name-brand frame. I typically tell them that this is not the point of the glassyeyes blog, but I could be more helpful. There are deals to be had on name-brand frames and one of the places that I know delivers the goods is FramesDirect.

I've had neighbors looking for non-prescription sunglasses and co-workers who just had to have that name brand embossed into the temple. FramesDirect worked for them.

The only reason I bring this up, is that they're having a 3 Day Sale using the aptly-named coupon code "3DaySale". This ends October 1.

The deal is, you get $50-off of frames WITH lens purchase over $109. That's not a tough bar to reach with them -- they're much more expensive than my favorites over to the left, BUT much less expensive than the place at the mall -- with an even larger selection.

The low-down is, you're going to spend $45 or so for basic plastic single vision lenses without UV. You're going to want UV protection for $15. Anti-reflective (AR) coating starts at $45.

If it were me, I'd get something classic, like these Shurons for $92.

Then I'd add the basic plastic lenses, skip the AR (as no one had AR back in the age of Mad Men) and add UV coating. With the $50-off you're looking at about $112 and much, much less than you'd pay elsewhere. I'm sure you can find frames for less as I didn't really want to spend too much time perusing brands I can't stand.

My guess is this will be useful to some of you.

Sales like these do one more thing for me -- they validate the fact that markups are HUGE in eyeglass frames and lenses.

Because they've known it's a scam all along -- and scammers are rarely scammed.

Anywhere medicine meets fashion, you're looking at an environment ripe for ridiculous pricing and less than durable products. The moment brand licensing entered the picture this industry lost respectability.

When marketing becomes more important than the product, the product quality inevitably loses out.

Need some more examples to this hypothesis? How about a SpongeBob joke book, or the Chicago Cubs.

What they want you to think is eye insurance is little more than a marketing campaign by the manufacturer/retailer. 

If it continues down this path, how long will it be until we can no longer use pre-tax dollars in our health savings accounts to pay for eyeglasses?

The only way this changes is if we vote with our wallets.

Looking for a way to do something good with your old eyeglasses? Find a box.

The Lion's Club has been recycling eyeglasses and getting them to faces of people in need around the world for many years. They say it costs them $0.08 per pair to rehab them and distribute.

There used to be a time that you could find a Lion's Club box on the top of the cigarette machine at every local supper club and pizzeria -- back when people smoked and were places called supper clubs and pizzerias.

Ahh, those halcyon days of the late 70's.

Nearly everything that was simple and good about the time of my childhood has been replaced by Walmart. This is not an exception.

I typically try to avoid Walmart. This is an exception.

Banksy.
They extended it once at the end of the month, but this is the end. It's a great day to save yourself up to 50% of your eyeglasses purchase or try out a retailer you've yet to use at a price that is hard to pass up.

Here's the link that will give you $20-off per pair of prescription eyeglasses.

Ends September 7.

It's been a year or so since my last informal letter to the retailers.

In that time, not a lot has changed, except that their customers have a much easier time of offering praise for successes -- and quite often anger at their failures. If you don't know anything about Twitter or Facebook at this point, it's possibly a lost cause.

Wake up!

It only takes one ugly incident to take the starch out of your monthly sales goals. Mess up with someone who has 10,000 followers and the "viral" you've been seeking will happen -- in exactly the opposite way you'd planned. You live and breathe online-only, you don't have the uninformed "walk-up" sales of the mall stores to prop you up. A prominent link to a complaint may live mere pixels from that google ad you're spending so much on.

The vast majority of purchase experiences are wonderful. Concentrate on the others and be responsive!

Don't, uh, defecate where you eat.

Just got a call from 39DollarGlasses offering to extend the $20-off discount another week.

The timing is great.

There is an influx of new visitors this week due to the AlterNet article, and giving people a chance to get their prescription together is very helpful.

If you're new, please start with this article to see what the process entails -- it's really not that daunting.

Click here to get $20-off per pair!

Runs through Labor Day.