Glasses: Price check. Are expensive glasses better? (CBC Marketplace)

this week on marketplace I leave your glasses your eyewear costs more than your iPod either fries training we peel back the price tag and ask why our test pits Canada's biggest eyeglass store chain against Canada's biggest eyeglass store online there are actually a little bit crooked and what is your eye doctor not showing you it's a little fuzzy why did challenging the status quo land this guy in jail calling it protectionism all absolute our sights are set on getting you the goods are you protecting public interests or your own economic interest we've got our eye out for some new eye we're doing a little secret shopping in Toronto I need new glasses and I kind of like your friend shopping not just for glasses but for answers to a question you probably asked yourself why do these little pieces of plastic and screws cost so much all right faithlyn we're using our hidden cameras for a different kind of eye test a price check and optical stores both big and small helped me work for him that's Megan a marketplace staffer like more than half of us her eyesight ain't what it used to be we've asked her to buy new glasses for the first time in years and things come into focus pretty quickly to turn 80 now and that's just four frames not including lenses for 20 either 5:29 it's easy to find price tags in the 400 to 500 dollar range though you're paying for the designer name at that point still even average frames can cost a few hundred and listen to end the talk does turn to lenses whatever cream you choose will be denied what the brain 389 dollars plus the frames at I star over at the Bayes optical department yep just the lenses cost 729 bucks throw in some middle-of-the-road frames and anti-glare coating and you're up to more than a thousand sure you got a wonder if there's a cheaper option out there here's a guy who once offered an option thousand bucks for a pair of glasses that's crazy five hundred dollars for a pair of glasses that's ludicrous Bruce burg as is a former optician from Hamilton and a former jailbird he spent a year behind bars for refusing to play by the rules when it comes to selling glasses in Ontario to some burg as is a folk hero challenging the eyeglass industry to others he's an antihero who was out to make a buck I never intended to get into a dispute here's where his chain and his troubles began it had a database of about 15,000 customers when it shut down the chain was called great glasses it offered free site tests and cheap eyeglasses but that business model violates the practices of the College of optometrists of Ontario those rules say glasses can be prescribed only by doctors Berg as was doing simple sight tests in his store his machines spit out numbers he used to make someone a new pair of glasses all people wanted to do was improve the strength of their eyeglasses most often for fashion purposes Henry so the machine I never felt was prescribing the College of optometrists sure did and took Berg s to court he was fined millions but continued to defy the rules even when order to stop the battle went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada Berg as lost everything his house his business and his freedom he still owes more than seventeen million dollars the biggest contempt fine in Canadian history and say they're protecting the public but really at the end of the day they're protecting their self-interests you're calling it protectionism oh absolutely okay absolutely Fergus says it's the established players in both retail and regulation that are keeping the cost of glasses high in a pair of glasses you have one two three four screws two pairs of lenses made out of plastic okay either metal frames or plastic frames it seems to me incredibly odd that that has to sell for four five or six hundred dollars so we asked this industry insider about what glasses really cost and he shares some stunning information on the most expensive part the lenses lenses can be divided into two categories in the industry we talk about a lens that's of stock lens those stock lenses are very very inexpensive to use how much between two and ten dollars over there those lenses the kind most of us need are cheap says Berg as because they're mass-produced even putting them into the frames is pretty much automatic and lenses that need more work he says still aren't that expensive to make you might find them at anywhere for twenty-five to fifty dollars that's at the independent level when you're dealing with a multinational company that's selling glasses out of a mall that product cost drops to fractions of that or lenses that could be $200 the actual real cost on that's about $2 yep that's what he says $2 we're back in the mall shopping at LensCrafters I need to get a new pair of glasses this is my prescription Bruce Berg asses words are ringing in our ears is pretty strong hmm so what does that do to the price that's not so clear and that's because when you walk into any optical store these days everyone as a sale going on but it can get confusing so everyone has a calculator going to it's hard to figure out what is a good deal especially when we're told the average price an average pair will talk to you about three good straight up 350 is another shirt that's the average well watch what happens when Megan finally buys these mid-range glasses at LensCrafters Canada's largest retailer first one there's that calculator again after much tapping for 43 okay and remember that's on sale maybe another chain store will be cheaper think again competition seems to be an optical illusion just take a look around your local mall LensCrafters is owned by a multinational called luxottica it also owns Pearl Vision and Sears Optical even sunglass hut and guess what almost all of the designer brands inside those stores owned by luxottica are made by yup luxottica it's a long list now wonder the corporation's yearly sales are in the billions so where can you look for cheaper glasses well we check out smaller chains Hakeem optical how do you tell them at the frames our prices still in the hundreds big-box stores such as Walmart a limited selection after the break we test the online option 72 percent off the suggested retail plane and we visit a province where the rules that handcuffed Bruce bridges are off the books here we go we're focusing in on eyeglasses millions of us need them but are we paying too much our staffer megan has bought a pair for close to four hundred and fifty dollars at LensCrafters now we're shopping via the web and wind up at Canada's biggest online optical store so this is the site it's called clearly contacts you may have seen their commercials starring the corporate hockey player Trevor Linden clearly contacts has the same designer frames you'll find anywhere else they include the lenses and all the coatings free of charge and they start from just thirty-eight dollars these guys have been selling contacts online for 10 years but eyeglasses are different how will they fit and feel and how will they look on Megan's face that's what we're about to test and upload a picture and actually go through their entire inventory Meg eventually settles on a pair of mid-range house brand glasses hosiery hands 68 by 72 percent off the suggested retail plane she inputs her prescription but it's a snag clearly contacts wants something called her pupillary distance or PD and what how do you do that D D is the distance between your pupils it helps ensure your eyes and your lenses are properly aligned but we're warned it's not a do-it-yourself exercise that's been wrong look at the warm color fiber when Megan bought at LensCrafters they use this special device to figure out her pupillary distance but stores don't give your PD in case you use it to buy elsewhere like online this allows to get a few Meg's prescription doesn't give the PD either it's an easy measurement for automatize to take and give out but they don't you have to hold the paper up in front of your face clearly contacts says we'll have to measure the PD ourselves no fancy device here though just a paper ruler they tell us to print out where do I line up I say okay and line up the line with the pupil so we'll our online glasses fit okay we'll know in just a few days according to the clearly contacts website total price not the 38 bucks we hear in that commercial instead almost $200 still it's more than twice that it lens crown and twice as long for delivery either way to do take about illicit week okay we'll show you how else the two pairs measure up later on meantime our path points us toward British Columbia where it's practically the Wild West when it comes to getting glasses BC is revolutionising the way people buy glasses both online and in stores like this it's the only province to relax its rules on how I wear can be dispensed optician Chris Lee doesn't look like a revolutionary but he's now allowed to sell glasses after doing a simple sight test like this one on me for my chin rest here we go - steady remember tests like these got Bruce Berg is in trouble back at Ontario Canyon week the line for me o H a and we can tell the customer likes it because we don't have to send them away somewhere else and and I'm having to come back so at least saving them at least one or two trips this one oh I love them it also saves customers money a standalone sight test costs about $40 a full exam of the eye doctor costs twice as much though it checks for eye disease so are the savings in BC compromising safety it's a little fuzzy in Ontario the College of optometrists says yes it calls the BC sight tests a serious risk to say that you need an eye examination before you can get glasses really is true College boss dr. Paula Garcia Witt says a simple sight test can't replace a full I exam patient will come in and say you know I'm not seeing quite as well with my glasses I think I just need a change in my prescription and through the course of the exams the optometrist may arrive at information that actually there is undetected eye disease that made the patient's vision blurry not not a change in their prescription Vesey prescription as you can see that I got it says this sight test is not a substitute for a regular eye health examination no one in BC is telling people not to get an eye exam I can only explain to you what the Ontario government's position is and that is is that a standalone refraction there is a risk of harm to the public in that but Bruce burr guest says Ontario optometrists are overstating the harm what's good for BC he says is good for the rest of us we're all Canadians it should be one playing field across the country and it's not there is another thing the BC regulations have that the rest of us don't you get your pupillary distance it's now included in every prescription you can take your PD and order online why not everywhere else these are two prescriptions this is one from Ontario obviously no PD and this is from BC one that I got which has the PD on it people are going to wonder why PD is not a required part of the prescription in in Ontario if the concern is I health and risk of harm and if PD is you know a factor in that why not make it available to people it as I say it is not part of the required clinical information for the provision of a prescription why not why not make it so is it the fear that people may use it to buy online I'm letting you know what the what the regulations require our members to do are you protecting public interests though or your own economic interest absolutely the public interest is paramount meantime the pair we bought online from clearly contacts is being delivered first impressions today they're kind of crooked you can see the frame over your eye it is distracting because I can tell that they're crooked Megan picks up the phone and calls the clearly contacts helpline but it's not so helpful is it crooked on my face so I'm not sure what to do next Academy cook at tiara when you wearing crooked SS malodorous it's your phase develop yes they've come easy to defeat issues with her face we take issue with that and get this he suggests we take her new glasses to an optical store for adjustment we take our questions to the source back in BC we're inside the Vancouver headquarters of clearly contacts with a guy who started it all Roger Hardy the average optical shop is selling three to five pairs of glasses and contacts per day and we're doing somewhere between five and seven thousand orders per day party says it's all about cutting out the middleman and he confirms what we've heard about actual costs the cost of frames can be anywhere from 10 15 $20 lenses can be less this average price is just $50 a pair a lot less than Megan Payne it depends what people add onto their glasses when they buy them so that pair of glasses that your partner bought would be if they were about $200 at traditional retail that would be 400 to 600 dollars that said we tell him Megan's glasses aren't fitting right and their help line wasn't sounding right it was a challenging conversation is it the person on the other end of the phone didn't understand the problem with why she described it I wouldn't say every call is perfect but we're certainly working on doing a better job party says you can pack them up and send them back or they'll help pay part of the cost for any adjustments at an optical store seems the online people see value in the in-store experience after all and we're testing that ourselves at LensCrafters a week after they're ordered our 450 dollar glasses are ready I need to get my glasses turns out they don't fit properly either after more than a few adjustments I think they're straighter now everything seems to be in order or is it we're about to find out at the University of Waterloo we're taking our two pairs of glasses for an exam and we have professor Ralph Chu to conduct the exam professor Qiu is an optometrist who's agreed to check our specs for quality accuracy a prescription and basically if one's any better than the other the important thing here is checking the fit on the glasses but first he eyeballs them to see how they fit Megan's face so actually you know Kay you chose a nice frame we haven't told the professor but we can tell you care number one is from clearly contacts they're actually a little bit crooked after a bit of heating and bending I think that's about the right fit for you there how does that feel feels good professor Chu says it's pretty normal for a new pair of glasses to need adjustments up next let's take a look a pair number two which can I'll trade you that's a good friend this is the pair we bought at LensCrafters okay I can tell right away as soon as I put it on it slipped down so even this one yeah this one really needs some adjustment professor Chu tells us the pair that's already been adjusted twice though he doesn't know that yet doesn't fit as well as the first pair even more adjustments are made and then finally a good fit your well adjusted over the next hour professor Chu puts our glasses through a battery of tests using a lens ometer just to take a look at the powers of the lenses and something called a Ranchi grading tester it checks for inconsistencies in the lens material when all is said and done overall I don't see any real difference between them in terms of overall quality professor Chu thinks both glasses are just fine so we let him in on where we bought them number one was ordered from a company called clearly contacts on line pair two was bought at LensCrafters you know if clearly contacts can do the job equally well as with the paraffin LensCrafters fine as long as the quality is there you know you shouldn't have any reason to be concerned after the break we take our findings to LensCrafters you haven't answered the question why are they so expensive and now that he's a free man guess where Bruce Burr gaze is heading what are you doing with boxes of glasses in your house what's the plan for all this we're framing your options when it comes to I we're comparing Canada's biggest online retailer to the country's biggest chain of optical stores it's been a real eye-opener but you ain't seen nothing yet how are you thanks for doing this no problem Dominic ooh yummy is vice president of operations for LensCrafters we get right down to business pressing him about his prices they're just plastic and screws why do they cost so much we can correlate it to the fashion and clothing I mean you could buy a suit for $50 you can buy a suit for $1,000 you haven't answered the question why are they so expensive these are designer brands these brands have cachet I mean chanel has a pricing position in the market and they have that same pricing position whether it's eyeglasses purses shoes etc in other words you're paying for the brand names made by the same company that owns LensCrafters your parent company looks auto owns the stores in this mall that we're in right now all these brand names you talked about here around us in the store are all made by legs Otakon you all work for the same people it's not uncommon in in retail for many retailers to have multiple brands that serve different market demographics we decide to bounce a few numbers off mr. Goodell mean an industry insider we've talked to says that you know quality lenses essentially are available for as little as $10 I can't speak for the industry insider what I do know is that you know consumers have a choice we you know have a 30 year history of providing great quality eye health and eye care so we tell him that our test finds LensCrafters service somewhat lacking when our staffer picked up her glasses she had them adjusted not once but twice then when we brought them to the expert we showed them to he acted as if they hadn't been adjusted at all and adjustments are common having the need to have your glasses that adjusted sometimes more than once is not an uncommon thing it seems like no matter where you buy your glasses in a store or line you'll likely end up back at the mall in search of service the only variable perhaps is how much money you'll have left in your pocket as for former optician and jailbird Bruce Berg as our ending is his new beginning what are you doing with boxes of glasses in your house what's the plan for all this uh by April I'll be in British Columbia I'm gonna be stopping a new star on British Columbia without the troubles he had here the family will head west right after Jo Ann Berg as as house arrest ends she wears an electronic ankle bracelet because as a director in the great glasses venture she was guilty of helping her husband we'd like to stay in Ontario but circumstances dictate a political climate is better than two and British Columbia so that's where we're gonna go where he says if you need a pair of glasses the rules aren't so short-sighted

Channel: CBC News

Views: 891,240

Rating: 4.8406529 out of 5

Keywords: CBC News, CBCNews, CBC broadcasting media, public broadcasting news, Canadian News, Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (TV network), CBC News Network, glasses, eyeglasses, Eyeglass Prescription (Product Category), LensCrafters (Business Operation)

Id: n8vNi6IeRNU

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2015