I spent a half hour or so at a couple of eyeglasses shops at the local mall this weekend. I haven't found myself spending too much time in stores such as these in the past couple of years, but I needed to do a little research for a new blog I'm working on (more on that in a few weeks).

I spent a bunch of time sitting in a hotel and in a hospital lounge over the past month in Fargo, North Dakota -- a four hour drive Northwest from my home in the Twin Cities. Fargo in the early spring is a crap-shoot. It can be almost 60 in the afternoon and drop 8-inches of snow on you overnight. It also has a boatload of optical stores lining 13th Avenue between University and West Acres Mall. One of these stores caught my attention.

One Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, on the way to my complimentary breakfast, I grabbed a complimentary copy of the early edition of the Sunday Fargo-Forum off of the hotel front desk. A glossy advertisement fell at my feet as I put it under my arm. Normally, I'd pick something like this up and toss it with the rest of the ads into the nearest garbage can, but having a trained eye to the eyeglasses industry, this ad made me forget my complimentary coffee on the bookshelf next to the complimentary sightseeing pamphlets.

The ad for Dr. Barnes' Eyemart Express, using cleavage-bearing eyeglasses models exclaimed, "1 Pair of Glasses $38.74†" and another offer of "2 Pairs of Glasses $67.92†."

The small print stated:
† Some restrictions apply. Includes frames up to $19.95 and single vision plastic lenses.

I needed to see what all of this was about. We don't have any of Dr. Barnes' eyeglass joints in Minneapolis (or my beloved St. Paul). A quick drive up the road and I was there. The experience was almost exactly like my experience in nearly every other eyeglasses store I'd been in -- except it was busy. There were eight to ten discreet groups of people milling about trying to get help from the two employees working the floor. I overheard a woman telling her husband to go and get in line -- that they'd already been waiting for nearly a half-hour.

I also saw the standard fare of second-tier brand names and pseudo-brand name generics -- I laughed out loud when I came upon the "LOL" case.

I scurried about looking for the frames that fit the bill of the aforementioned deals knowing there was no way I was going to get any help within the limited window of time I had for this trip. I finally found them -- in the back-side of a display case in the middle of the sales-floor. These frames seemed solid enough and not unlike many of the frames you'd see at the online retailers listed to the left. The major difference was that there appeared to be only about 20 frames to choose from at this $19.95 price point.

I looked around for a lens price list and found a partial marketing list in a drawer that had been left open. They offer something called the "Protection Plus Package" which includes Scratch Resistant Coating for $20, UV protection for $20, and Tint for $15. It also includes a one-year warranty on scratches. They bundle these and "give" it to you for $29 -- but that isn't the lens cost. The lenses start at about $20.

If you want anti-reflective coating, you're going to spend an additional $45 or $60 per pair (they offer two levels of AR). I had better luck getting my questions answered on the phone than in the store.

To break it down, you'll be spending approximately $115 to $130 for a pair of glasses VERY similar in make-up to the $20 - $40 glasses you're buying at the places to the left.

Is $100 a lot to spend on a pair of eyeglasses? No, compared to LensCrafters, but yes compared to your online options.

I think there is a place for a store like this -- but maybe not this store. I think it's possible that at some point in the near future, you'll see someone borrow some of the ideas of the online stores and take them to a strip mall near you. $50 for a pair of utilitarian glasses with AR, UV and anti-scratch that you can pick up tomorrow -- $30 (or less) if you're willing to wait a couple of weeks for them to arrive in a big box from China.

All in all, Dr. Barnes' Eyemart Express plays a bit too much with the bait and switch to be worth your time. You can do better, for much less dough -- online.

Too good to be true? Too expensive to be sure.

There has been an awful lot said about stealing the light, time and I assume even the air from the mall optical stores. I think the markup might just cover the lost opportunity from the .5% of America who would even consider buying online eyeglasses. I hope to help enlighten enough people to make that a much more respectable percentage.

The fact of the matter is that there is no way brick and mortar opticians will even feel it -- at least for the time being. People call foul for using these as a fitting room and then making the purchase on the internet. You can look at this any number of ways -- and here is mine:

No one needs to feel like they should buy something from every store they enter. Do your research. Ask questions. Be polite. You may find that the store you are in is in fact the right place for you to buy your glasses. If you don't, take what you've learned and move on.

Let's face it, it's up to them to "sell" you eyeglasses. If they have a good story and can give you better reasons why you should purchase from them, then you'd be wise to do so. I look at this as giving them a last chance to make a sale they weren't going to have a chance at to begin with. That's certainly worth something to a retailer.

I've always been a bargain shopper. I think it started when I was in high school and money was tight. It's a skill that one must hone through diligence and through discipline to be able to see the point at which you cross into that area of spending too much time hunting for deals to save only a few bucks. Time is, in fact, money (sometimes).

Anyway, I shop at all sorts of stores. If I can get an item at a small local store for a competitive price, I do. If it's significantly more expensive, sorry, I've got to feed my family also.

If I felt I needed to buy something from every store I went into, I'd never go out. This is simply not the way it is.