Why should I buy my eyeglasses at an optical shop rather than online?
- Posted on: Dec 15 2021
Obviously, buying products online is convenient, and during the past 18 months of COVID it was for many months the only available way to buy things. But for certain products, personal attention to your needs is more important than instant convenience. At The Eye Clinic, we strongly believe eyeglasses are one of those products.
Sure, we sell eyeglasses in our Optical Shop, but we’re more concerned with helping patients achieve the best vision possible. Personally fitting eyeglasses in our optical shops does just that. This, of course, follows your professional eye exam to test your eyes and determine your refractive error (why you need eyeglasses).
Eyeglasses aren’t like buying a shirt. Eyeglasses are a long-term purchase that will affect your vision all day every day. Is that something you really want to trust to an online store?
Why an optical shop is the place to buy your eyeglasses:
- Many decisions are involved
Buying eyeglasses involves many decisions — everything from various materials and designs for both lenses and frames, to hinge types and lens coatings. If you’re completely comfortable and knowledgeable about these decisions, you can buy glasses online, but most people aren’t. They need a person to bounce questions off of and get feedback. That’s what we do.
- Measurements are critical
The optical center of your eyeglasses is where the lenses provide the most accurate vision, and it needs to sit directly in front of your pupils. To find this, a measurement is made of the distance between your pupils, colloquially known as PD (papillary distance). Measuring your own PD is difficult. And if you get it wrong, your glasses purchased online won’t have the optical centers of the lenses in the correct location. We take precise PD measurements in our optical shops.
- Fit needs to be tested
Just as each of our faces is uniquely shaped, eyeglasses vary in the way they fit those uniquely shaped faces. Frames that don’t fit your face correctly — maybe they’re too large, or maybe they slip on the bridge of your nose — may not only be uncomfortable, but they may also keep the optical center from being correctly positioned.
At The Eye Clinic, we can provide feedback if a frame style is a good choice for you and whether it may change once the lenses are inserted. Or we may suggest an alternative with thinner, lighter lenses that works better, particularly if you have a strong prescription.
- There’s nothing like trying different frames in person
Much more than a piece of clothing or shade of makeup, your eyeglasses are on your face basically all the time. So, why are you going to trust such an important part of your look to an online shop where you digitally apply frames onto an uploaded photo of your face?
At our Optical Shop in The Eye Clinic, you can try on as many frame styles as you like. You can try different lens weights and thicknesses. And you can ask a live person what he or she thinks of your choices. This ensures you’ll love the glasses you finally opt to purchase.
- We’ll make sure you’re happy with your eyeglasses
After you buy your eyeglasses, we’ll help with future adjustments. Or, if you decide you don’t like your choice, we’ll work with you to get you into a frame and lens you’re happier with. That’s not true online, where returns can be difficult, if not impossible.
Maybe this holiday season, you should treat your eyes to a new pair of glasses. Come find the perfect pair at our Optical Shop in our location on Barnes Road in St. Vincent. Call us at (503) 297-4718 with any questions or if you need to schedule an eye exam to be sure your new glasses have your current prescription.
Posted in: Optical Shop
