My first experience of buying glasses online

I recently bought glasses online for the first time. This isn’t an ad or sponsored post. This is my own experience, which I thought might be useful to share.

I started wearing glasses in 2009. I literally got my first pair of glasses on my 36th birthday. I was long sighted and the glasses just made the world a little bit brighter and sharper. I remember that my test plus the glasses cost an eye watering £255.

After that, I stopped recalling the exact prices. But, needless to say, they always went up rather than down.

My optician of choice was always Boots and I always bought the designer glasses. I did try on the other glasses, but the designer glasses just looked better. And I figured that, if I was going to be wearing them every day for two years, it was important that I liked them.

I had a test every two years, my eyes had always got slightly worse, and I always had a new pair of glasses. The glasses were always from Boots and the frames were always black!

A few years ago, I started to need varifocals and the cost of my glasses shot up. When I got my glasses in 2021, the price was edging towards £500. That really is a ridiculous price to pay. I knew I could get cheaper in Specsavers and I did look at them a couple of times, but I just didn’t like them as much.

I told myself that £500 for two years was less than £1 a day. That price actually compares favourably with the price a lot of people pay for daily contact lenses.

At the end of last year, my eye test rolled around again. Not only did I need new glasses yet again, but I really wanted different glasses. Suddenly the black glasses I’d always loved weren’t fashionable any more. I looked in the mirror and I thought they just looked wrong. I wanted glasses with clear frames.

I had my eye test at Boots and tried on a few frames, but I knew I wasn’t going to buy them. The frames I liked best were £200. Then there would be the ridiculous cost of the varifocal lenses on top of that. I looked at Specsavers and once more I was disappointed with the selection. I tried an independent optician but their styles were too edgy for me. (I don’t buy into the whole ‘dress your age’ thing, but I would have just felt self-conscious in those glasses.)

My husband had got his glasses from an optician which does online and has shops in London. But, guess what? They wouldn’t do varifocals online.

So I tried Glasses Direct.

I must admit, I was nervous. Buying glasses is a big deal. But they offer returns within 120 days if you are unhappy for any reason. It seemed like a no-brainer. They do also offer frames to try on. You can order up to four empty frames to try on and they will arrive the next day. What a brilliant idea!

It took me a VERY long time to scroll through all the glasses and find ones I liked. I must admit, I was starting to lose the will to live. The good news is, I could ‘favourite’ them as I went along, so at least I wouldn’t forget which ones I liked. And then I could order some frames to try on, right? Unfortunately the frames I eventually chose didn’t have the free frames offer, so I just had to take a gamble.

As ever, I went for a designer frame. Because the prices were so much lower than Boots, I went for the top level of varifocal, whereas at Boots I always went for the second best. With a special offer I paid just £175 for a pair of varifocals! Less than the cost of the frames I wanted in Boots.

I carefully input all the information from my prescription into the order form, paid my money and put the order through.

Then the next day I got an email asking me to send a photo or scan of my prescription.

Then the day after that I got an email asking me for an accurate measurement of my pupillary distance (PD) – the distance between the pupils – to make sure I’m looking through the right bit of the lens. Again, I lost the will to live. It seemed like a lot of hoops to jump through. I had to remind myself that I was saving around £325 and had to put up with a bit of inconvenience.

In the end, measuring the PD wasn’t too difficult. I just had to download the GlassesOn app.

FINALLY Glasses Direct had all the necessary information and my order would go through. It would take 10-14 days. My glasses wouldn’t arrive in time for Christmas. I must admit, I was disappointed about that. I really was fed up of seeing my face in glasses with black frames.

The glasses arrived on 18th December!

I put them on and at first I hated them. I just felt they didn’t suit me.

I must admit one of the things I like about black frames is they do a good job of hiding wrinkles. But clear frames showed all of the imperfections in my skin (and as an acne sufferer, I have many of those!), which was a shock at first.

I could send them back. I had 120 days. I’d just have to get some glasses with brown frames instead.

But after a day I started to like them. Then I was very happy with them.

My only small niggle is the varifocals don’t work quite right for me with working on my laptop on the breakfast bar (which is where I do all my work!). I know some people struggle a lot with varifocals, but I’ve always got on well with them.

I’m looking down a bit to look at the laptop and it’s normal to work with a computer more at eye level. If I’d bought my glasses in an actual optician’s shop, would I have had that problem? Probably not. But it’s OK, I can cope with it.

So that’s my first experience of using an online optician. I would definitely do it again!