eyeglasses for eight bucks?

I had heard that shopping for new eyeglasses online was cheaper, but eight bucks? How can this be?

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me that much. When it comes to eyeglass frames, I've always found it ridiculous that vendors at the all charge upwards of $100 to $200 for a plastic frame that I can buy as sunglasses for about $10. I can understand the price of the prescription lenses being a little pricey, but the frames have always seemed overpriced to me. So now I find a place online that has the for only $8, and all of my suspicions about mark-ups at the mall stores seem to be true.

Now, you might be expecting these $8 frames to look like woodshop rejects, but they actually look pretty modern and stylish:


What's even more shocking is that the advertised $8 price is for *complete* eyeglasses - not just the frames. I had to do a double-take when I saw that. Can this be for real?

Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com

I did some searching for reviews on Zenni Optical, and found a site with about 26 online customer reviews. They reviews were split about 50/50. Half of the customers had nothing but good things to say. The others had nothing but bad things to say - particularly about their customer service. So I suspect that is how they can offer such low prices. I'll have to check with my wife to see who her coworker went through, as she was quite pleased with her online order. Maybe it was Zenni. At only $8, I may go ahead and try them out. If it doesn't work, and they try to rip me off in any way, I can always do a chargeback on my credit card, right?

The only thing that I am going to feel like I am really missing are the adjustments that the eye doctor (or his assistant) usually does on the frames, which can make the difference between a truly comfortable pair of glasses and major headaches. But most places will do free adjustments for you if you just walk in to their store, whether you bought them there or not.