The Netflix of Prescription Glasses: A Warby Parker Review

With all of my information entered, I purchased two pairs of prescription glasses: the Clement eyeglasses and the Felton sunglasses. Although the company has several pairs starting at $95, the Clement was $145 and the Felton was $150.

A few days later, my glasses arrived and I excitedly opened the packages to try them on. My 8-year-old glasses were scratched up and I was eager to put on fresh, clear lenses. But something was wrong. Anyone who regularly wears prescription glasses knows the feeling they get when they try a pair where the prescription is just not right. Things look sharper than without the glasses, but there’s a weird, almost imperceptible flaw that causes eye strain, headaches, and nausea.

My “new” prescription was just a tiny bit different from my old one, so I wasn’t sure if Warby Parker had messed up in making the glasses, if I had entered the prescription info wrong when ordering, or if the prescription was simply wrong to begin with. I returned to my doctor and found the answer: after reexamining both my old and new glasses, the doctor discovered that his initial scan of my old glasses generated the wrong prescription information due to an irregularity in the old lenses. The Warby Parker glasses were made to the proper specifications, but those specifications were incorrect.

I Can See Clearly Now

Armed now with the correct prescription, I returned home and sheepishly called Warby Parker to see what could be done about returning the glasses and getting the prescription updated. After dialing their number, it rang twice and I heard a pleasant woman’s voice say “Thanks for calling Warby Parker, this is [I forget her name so I’ll call her Alice] Alice, how can I help you?” Just like that Chase credit card commercial, I was a bit flabbergasted and didn’t respond immediately; I was expecting at least one level of automation before reaching a real person.

After I came around, I told Alice about the prescription mixup and she immediately apologized for the inconvenience, promised me that everything would be taken care of, and asked me to email her my new prescription information. A few days later, my new glasses arrived and pre-paid return labels for the first pairs with the incorrect prescription were emailed to me. It was an absolutely painless interaction, and one that is so rare in today’s ‘cut every corner, screw the customer’ business environment.

My new pairs were thankfully just right and I’ve been enjoying the new style and scratch-free lenses for about a week now. Each ordered pair arrives well-packaged with a carrying case and lens cloth. The build quality is very good and easily meets that of store-bought glasses I’ve owned in the past.

Comparisons

But how does Warby Parker compare to a traditional eyeglass store? I decided to find that out as well. When I returned to my doctor to solve the prescription problem, I decided that I wanted a second pair of prescription glasses. I wear them all the time and, having not had any new glasses in 8 years, I figured it would be nice to have a second pair (one I could keep in the car or office, for example).

So I visited the eyeglass store that was attached to my doctor’s office and picked out a nice pair. After adding the option for anti-reflective lenses (something that comes standard from Warby Parker), my total came to about $250. Also, this wasn’t LensCrafters, so I had to wait about a week for the glasses to be ready. In fact, the store called me to let me know they were ready on the same day that UPS delivered my replacement pairs from Warby Parker. Therefore, in my case at least, there was no time advantage to visiting the store as compared to ordering online.

The store-bought glasses are definitely nice, but perhaps not worth the extra $100 over the Warby Parker pair. The other factor in Warby Parker’s favor that we have yet to discuss is the company’s charitable mission to “do good.”

As a founding principle of the company, for each pair of glasses sold Warby Parker makes a donation to a non-profit organization that provides glasses to those in need, a program called “buy a pair, give a pair.” The company recently reported that their donations have enabled over 500,000 glasses to be distributed thus far. When you factor in this worthy outcome, shopping with Warby Parker is an easy choice.

Concludes on page 4.