Edit: This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to our winner, Trisha!
I have long been a fan of ordering prescription glasses online. The reasons are pretty simple: it’s cheaper than a traditional store, easier than going out and not nearly as scary as it sounds.
Since I wear a fairly simple prescription I’m not worried about lens accuracy the way I would be if I were buying bifocals. For me buying glasses online is as simple as picking a frame, typing in my prescription, paying and hitting “send.” Really.
Meet 39dollarglasses.com. That company has asked us to do a review of their site, and they're offering 15 percent off to all SpouseBUZZ readers as well as a FREE pair of glasses to one lucky person through our giveaway below. Keep reading for those details.
39dollarglasses.com is not the first online glasses store that I’ve ever used, but after giving it a try for this review I’ve decided it’s a keeper. The site was easy to navigate and my order was easy to place. The prices were slightly higher there than on the other sites I’ve used, but was told that is because all of their products are made in the US, not overseas like some other, cheaper companies.
For me a pair of nice frames with special, extra thin lenses rang up to about $65 there – it usually costs about double that in a traditional store.
The first time I bought glasses online I used a different site. My biggest problem then was figuring out how the heck to enter my prescription, since none of the things my doctor wrote seemed to match-up with that site’s options. And let’s be honest, doctors aren’t known for their excellent handwriting. I had to hunt down a friend with optometry experience to decipher the whole thing for me. 39dollarglasses.com, however, has some helpful tools to help you figure out exactly what your doctor is getting at. It takes most of the confusion out of the process.
Here comes the not so glowing part of my 39dollarglasses.com experience. While shipping was super fast, when I got the glasses in the mail half of the frame was extremely bent. Since the frames were sealed in a hard case I knew the damage had happened before they’d been shipped. Bummer. I received them early evening, but since the company’s offices closed at 5 p.m., I had to wait until the next day to call and complain.
The next morning I was able to talk immediately to a real live human who emailed me a free return shipping label and helped me put in a second order to kick-in once the bad frames had been returned. A few days after sending them back I received an email saying they were processing my new order. While the return process was smooth, it was kind of a hassle. Since I already admitted to being too lazy to go to the glasses store, you can imagine how I feel about the post office.
A few days later we PCSed, and since the glasses didn’t make it before we moved and seemed to get lost in USPS’s forwarding system, 39dollarglasses rushed me another new pair. Even though the original problem with their fault, our PCS was not – and I appreciated the extra help.
All told it took me about three weeks to receive a not-bent version of my new glasses. At least a week of that had nothing to do with the company. And, since I made my husband go to the post office for me, I never did have to leave the house … so I still count the buying experience as mostly positive.
Every company can have shipping and product problems. I spend an ungodly amount of money at Amazon.com even though they sometimes don’t ship the right thing. Mistakes happen.
As for the glasses themselves, they're great! I've been wearing them full time for a little over a week now and they seem to be holding up great. No annoying sliding down my nose, no pinching on my ears and no weird spots on the lenses (other than the ones put their by my two-year-old). All in all they seem to be a great product.
A lot of you are probably reading this thinking “I don’t care about any of that – how do I make sure the glasses I buy online make me look hot, since I can’t try them on?” Since that is also my top concern, I understand.
Answer: know your face shape. 39dollarglasses.com has a fancy photo gallery on the right side of the each frame’s page allowing shoppers to see how those frames will look on someone with face shape similar to theirs. Using that makes it easy to find a new style that won’t make your face look like a donut.
Or, if you’re like me and would rather just stay on the same cutting edge of style you’ve called home since 2001, it’s easy to find frames that will look and fit you just as well as the ones you already have.
The key for this is the frame measurements. They are found on the 39dollarglasses site just below each frame’s description. Bust out a tape measure and compare those with the frames you know and love and you should be set. Keep in mind: I’ve found that even a centimeter larger in the temple length or distance between lenses can result in glasses that are much too big. Going a little smaller hasn’t seemed to cause a problem for me.
Online frame buying can seem a little scary the first time, but I promise once you try it you’re going to be hooked. 39dollarglasses.com ships to APO/FPO as well as stateside, and their customer representatives are military friendly. They also have a 100 percent money back guarantee, so that if you do actually hate the glasses you get, you can send them back.
Now the important part: the giveaway! Thanks to the folks at 39dollarglasses.com we get to offer one of our readers a free pair of eyeglasses up to a $75 value. To enter the giveaway all you need to do is “like” them on Facebook and leave a comment below telling us you did so. If you choose to leave a comment there as well, they ask that you only comment on their styles and prices, not saying "so and so sent me."
We’ll randomly pick a winner after 5 p.m. next Friday, August 19. And remember, all SpouseBUZZ readers get 15 percent off using coupon code MIL2011.
Good luck!
39dollarglasses.com gave me a complimentary product to make this review possible. All statements and opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way by the company.
