Warby Parker for Glasses–Meh

      I’ve worn glasses since the 4^th Grade when I admitted to my mom I could read a poster on the wall with my left eye but couldn’t read it with my right eye.  That poster was a newspaper headline of Custer’s Last Stand.  But, I digress.  Mom took me to an optometrist and I endured looking through a scope saying things like “One is clearer than Two.”  My first pair of glasses were brown plastic and remarkably fragile.  After six months or so the screws came out and a bit of black electrical tape was applied until I could get a new pair.  That was unpleasant, both being yelled at for breaking my “new” glasses and enduring the tape.  I’ve worn dozens of pairs of glasses since then.  And, mostly the process of buying new glasses is unpleasant.

     Warby Parker (https://www.warbyparker.com/) changed the industry-standard process for purchasing glasses in 2010 when they allowed people to order glasses online then try-on five pairs of glasses at home for free.  Currently, eyeglasses start at $95/pair at Warby Parker, which is cheaper than most optometrist shops but more expensive than Wal-Mart Optometry.  An eyeglass purchaser still must make the dreadful trek to an optometrist’s office to get a prescription, but now the purchaser has more options when selecting frames.  This is generally a good option for people who live in rural areas or who are too busy to deal with the lines at the optometry shops.  At Warby Parker, a client chooses five pairs online, tries them on at home, and returns the frames they don’t like at Warby Parker expense.  So far, the Warby Parker model is popular enough for them to be successful.

     The Warby Parker model isn’t really all that new.  Sears Catalog sales offered similar options for decades.  Customers would order from the Sears Catalog and return stuff they didn’t want.  And, most optometry shops, like Lenscrafters, still had to call in a customer’s order for delivery at a date in the future, sometimes by mail.  The difference between a retailer like Lenscrafters and Warby Parker is that with Warby Parker a customer could select their prospective frames online and never enter a brick and mortar store.

     I have a “fat” face so I have trouble finding glasses off the shelf at many of the brick and mortar stores, including Wal-Mart Optometry.  Warby Parker does have three different options for selecting face type when ordering online, but I’m skeptical they will be wide enough for me.  For exceptional people, there are advantages to going to a brick and mortar store to be properly fitted, rather than guess online.  Sure, one can return a frame at Warby Parker for free, but that process still takes time.  The small, medium, large sizes that have become predominant at the big box stores leaves so much of the population with ill-fitting clothing.  I fear that people who don’t fall into Warby Parker’s small, medium, large frame widths will end up with glasses that don’t really fit.  And, a “kinda fit” just makes one uncomfortable all the time.

     I’m glad Warby Parker is doing business online.  It keeps average people from adding to the lines at the brick and mortar stores. Am I tempted to change over to Warby Parker? Meh.