Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Healthy Habits: Pupillary Distance

Pupillary Distance is a new sort of hot-button item when it comes to optical wear. Sites such as Zenni Optical where you can buy eyeglasses online need the distance to provide the frames that will give you the best vision. Opticians don't usually want to just give away the number. Zenni accuses them of not having customers' best interests at heart by charging much more for frames than is necessary. Zenni Optical says that they take pride in providing affordable frames for those who need them. Opticians, on the other hand, feel that they're responsible for that measurement and don't want to worry about possible liability issues. Plus, it is a service, and some compare it to a service station rotating tires for free. Some will provide the measurement at a charge, others don't provide it at all.

I can see both sides of the issue. I've bought contacts online before, and had no problems with it, but I've never tried buying frames online. I don't feel right asking an eyewear center or eye doctor to adjust or fix frames I didn't buy from them - I could understand it perfectly why they'd want to charge a fee for some of those types of services. I think people should be able to get affordable eyewear, though.

Bottom line - shop around. If your eye doctor doesn't want to give you the measurement or your prescription, find out why. They may have legitimate ways for you to save money on your eyewear in their own shop. But if you can save money by buying online, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do that, too - as long as you're willing to take the risk of buying things sight unseen.

Disclaimer: this is a sponsored post, but all opinions are mine.

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