OK Cheapish specs.
Posted: Sat 01 Dec 2018 00:26
I am absolutely lethal to spectacles, in between breaking them, losing them, or - most recently - just having one of the lenses fall out somewhere “dans la nature”.
So I found myself in need of some new ones a couple of weeks ago, without particularly wanting to wait, and pay, for a turn with the ophthalmologue.
I happened to be in one of our local pharmacists, and saw a display stand for a firm called “otiko” and picked up their flyer. The deal is that you get your choice of their own-brand frames (about 50 of them, though I didn’t count) and pay €39 for the frames with single vision lenses, €100 with progressive lenses (plus €39 for a hard coating), and €200 with photochromic progressive lenses (with the hard coating thrown in). You provide a prescription and book an appointment (still at the pharmacy) with their itinerant optician.
It seemed worth a punt at those prices, so got an appointment a few days later with a pleasant young man who measured me up for my progressive lenses: he made no fuss about a UK prescription which is about 15 months old. I picked the glasses up at the pharmacy 8 days later, as promised, and they have suited me perfectly well for the few days I have worn them since. The frames seem to be of decent quality, and are a good fit for me (I have an unusually big head, literally if never metaphorically).
I have never bought specs here before, so I don’t know whether they are outstandingly cheap (though they are vastly cheaper than my sister pays: she has a very lavish mutuelle). But it could hardly have been more convenient, and all with a pleasant absence of the “up-selling” which I have learnt to associate with conventional opticians.
On the basis of one experience, warmly recommended. I’ll be getting some more. I should have mentioned that they are now owned by “Optic 2000”, which I believe is the largest chain of conventional opticians here. As ever, I am not on commission and don’t have shares in them.
So I found myself in need of some new ones a couple of weeks ago, without particularly wanting to wait, and pay, for a turn with the ophthalmologue.
I happened to be in one of our local pharmacists, and saw a display stand for a firm called “otiko” and picked up their flyer. The deal is that you get your choice of their own-brand frames (about 50 of them, though I didn’t count) and pay €39 for the frames with single vision lenses, €100 with progressive lenses (plus €39 for a hard coating), and €200 with photochromic progressive lenses (with the hard coating thrown in). You provide a prescription and book an appointment (still at the pharmacy) with their itinerant optician.
It seemed worth a punt at those prices, so got an appointment a few days later with a pleasant young man who measured me up for my progressive lenses: he made no fuss about a UK prescription which is about 15 months old. I picked the glasses up at the pharmacy 8 days later, as promised, and they have suited me perfectly well for the few days I have worn them since. The frames seem to be of decent quality, and are a good fit for me (I have an unusually big head, literally if never metaphorically).
I have never bought specs here before, so I don’t know whether they are outstandingly cheap (though they are vastly cheaper than my sister pays: she has a very lavish mutuelle). But it could hardly have been more convenient, and all with a pleasant absence of the “up-selling” which I have learnt to associate with conventional opticians.
On the basis of one experience, warmly recommended. I’ll be getting some more. I should have mentioned that they are now owned by “Optic 2000”, which I believe is the largest chain of conventional opticians here. As ever, I am not on commission and don’t have shares in them.