Have you ever walked into an outlet like OPSM, Specsavers, Bailey Nelson, or Laubman & Pank for an eye test and left feeling like you’d been gently pressured into spending $500 on a pair of glasses?
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[B]osses impose onto optometrists a variety of targets – whether its “converting” eye tests into sales or increasing rates of certain types of tests.
This type of pressure is reportedly causing many optometrists “significant moral distress” and some are starting to fight back.
bit of a tangent… but if you are travelling japan, it’s a great place to get glasses. super cheap, great customer service, free eye test, wide range.
in the past ive got my basic glasses in a couple hours at jins for well under $100.
on last trip i got multi-focals (love them) for ~$170 at megane ichiba, took about a week, but was over the nye break.
First time I ducked into a Dresden opticians for an eye test they straight up told me; “Nope, you don’t need new glasses.” Instant loyalty from me, and since then they’ve done it twice more.
They also manufacture their frames independently from recycled plastic so they’re not beholden to Luxottica.
Twice my wife came home from OPSM with kids glasses they didnt need “to help them concentrate…”. Their sales staff talked her into it…
That’s worldwide, and the reason I always tell whomever offers to help that I will only get tested in that store if and when I find some frames that I want, because I don’t want to waste their time if I don’t.
I found spec savers were better recently than they used to be. Felt really pushy a few years ago but a bit more chill now. Maybe its just the store I go to?
My spec savers store has never been pushy. Me and all my kids need glasses, we go every year for a check but only get a pair roughly every 3 years because they tell us there’s no point getting another pair yet.
I always order glasses online for $20… I only need the eye test in person. Surprised more people don’t do it
Where from? I looked at Zenni for mums and they were going to be $500aud. Multifocal transitions. Specsavers are $700.
Zenni, actually. I just got the basic $5 frames with the basic prescription
Yeah before I got Lasik I would always buy my glasses overseas (where I lived at the time), despite usually getting the tests done here. It was much cheaper that way.
How did lasik go? Doing well? Would you recommend it?
Yeah it went really well for me. It was a strange experience at first, not having glasses. I kept reflexively wanting to push them back up my nose, for weeks. And it took nearly a year before I could eat hot food without reflexively wanting to take off my glasses to avoid them fogging up. But I’m nearly 8 years on now and am so glad I don’t have to wear them anymore, especially during exercise.
I got it done in Vietnam, where the total cost was half of what the per-eye cost would have been in Australia. That was at an expensive by local standards place, which caters mainly to wealthy expats.
Awesome! I’m glad it worked out for you.
I got my last eye exam in vietnam… and orders the glasses to be delivered from Shenzhen. small world!
