I kinda get why the actual glass part costs a lot, but why are the frames that are basically plastic going for between $100-$500? Big brands it makes a bit more sense for, but sometimes almost completely unknown brands charge similarly high prices. Is it literally still just name recognition?
In: Economics
Because a company called Luxotica owns most of the manufacturing, distribution, and retail of glasses. so they can charge whatever they want.
Source: I used to work for one of their retail locations.
As u/GelatinousOoze mentioned, Luxotica is the source of almost all glasses in NA+Western EU. This isn’t the case in most of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In those areas glasses cost like 15 bucks all together. In Japan for example, the total cost of glasses can be as little as 10 dollars plus tax but average around 50 dollars.
To get comparable prices in the west, I personally use online glasses retailers like zenni optical or clearly. To give a good comparison, in my case, I have a very strong prescription so I pretty much have to opt for the lens reduction options. At normal retailers in Canada my glasses were about 500 Canadian. My most recent pair I ordered through clearly and spent 100.
In the UK you can get glasses (frames and basic lenses) for £25 from Specsavers on the high street and places like [Glasses Direct](https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/) online. Designer frames can still be expensive obviously, but there are still plenty of cheap options
? Frames are only $5-10 online, places like https://www.zennioptical.com/ have thousands of designs and brands.
Because they can. Almost the entire industry is controlled by Luxottica, who owns both the manufacturing side (they license all the designer brands — Prada, Gucci, etc don’t make their own frames—and also own brands like Ray-Ban) and retail (Lens Crafters, Pearle). They’re even a major player in the vision insurance arena!
Everyone who says it’s a monopoly hasn’t tried online shopping. I have 3 pairs I didn t spend more than 20 each on. Can’t tell any difference from the expensive stuff
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