Med-Psych.com

You have great information about where to buy cheap glasses on this site, but I'm looking for information on where I can get name brand contact lenses at the best price. Do you have any suggestions?

contact-wearer,

I'm going to need some time to work on this one. There is a ton of information out there and a lot of it seems to be loaded with bias. If other people have suggestions, feel free to make them here as it may help me focus where to start my analysis.

I started researching this topic, and surprisingly, I couldn't find nearly as much discussion about contact lenses as I could find with eyeglasses. There are numerous different types and brands of contact lenses. Just to start the discussion, I'll begin with the most popular lenses and see what the prices look like from a few different popular online sellers. From there, I'll also try to collect some feedback on the different companies that sell contacts.

Based on my research, disposable contact lenses are the most popular. Of those, the brand and style that I see most people talking about is the Acuvue Oasys. I realize now I should probably also put together comments on the particular brands / styles of contact lenses. I have a feeling this may turn into a project for the rest of the summer.

Keeping things to the original question - where to buy contacts online. This question should be much easier than where to buy eyeglasses as at least the brand / style contacts should be the same no matter where you purchase them; whereas with glasses, each company has different quality lenses and coatings.

Doing a quick search for the Acuvue Oasys, there are many places to purchase these online. Using Google’s price comparison engine, they cheapest site - webeyecare.com - has the price listed, including shipping, as $20.45 / box (before manufacturer rebates compared to a regular price of $31.99 / box). It turns out they add a 10-20% “processing fee” which came to be around $3 / box on this particular product making the total price around $23.50 / box. Their processing fee is less per box as the order gets larger. For example, 8 boxes had a $19.95 processing fee, making the total price per box only $22.95. Interestingly, on Google’s shopping search engine, they say it is free shipping. Not the case. They charge another $12.95 for 5 day ground shipping. Now we are up to $24.56 / box. This is still a better price than most other places, but I am guessing they knowingly giving deceptive information to try to get more traffic from Google. This alone would make me cautious to do business with them.

Reviews of webeyecare.com are mixed. They do have a decent volume of reviews and some say things go smoothly and comment on the good price. Other people complain that it often takes a while for the products to get shipped and that they have poor customer service if you have problems with your order.

Looking at the next cheapest place listed - buymorecontacts.com - only has 4 reviews. Maybe they will turn out to be an okay company, but I would wait until there is more information available before trusting them.

Next, is a company named replacemycontacts.com - and they list the price at $22 / box including shipping (free shipping on orders over $75). While the name made me think they are some fly-by-night operation, they actually have very good reviews overall, and a decent number of people have reviewed them. The price is really good without any hidden charges.

I’ll post more thoughts when I have more time.

I realized I need to make a quick comment that you can’t necessarily compare prices you see people advertising to what I’ve posted above, as many of the advertised prices (at least right now) include rebates that are available. I did not include the manufacturer rebates in my price comparisons. There are some good rebates, but I did see some people comment that certain rebates require you had an eye exam within 90 days of the purchase.

Looking at the Acuvue website, the current rebate offer fo Acuvue Oasys is $60 for new users and $25 for existing wearers. Some ads seem to include these rebates when calculating prices.

When I do a Google search for “Acuvue Oasys” I see plenty of paid ads for different companies advertising low prices. Many of those prices include the rebates. However, the prices are still good at some of those online retailers. I’ll look through a few of those here as well.

I started with Vision Direct and realized it would probably be best to make a separate thread for each of the companies I'm reviewing. You can see the Vision Direct Review here. The bottom line is that a first time buyer of 8 boxes of Acuvue Oasys, with a coupon code, can get them with free shipping for only $18.49 / box. That is a great price, but there are mixed reviews on their customer service.

I'll look at more companies as I have time.

I kept seeing the ads on the website popping up for Lens.com so I figured I'd do a review. You can find my review of Lens.com here with a comparison of the prices for the Acuvue Oasys. Bottom line is that the price came to $22.28 per box on an order of 8 boxes. The comments I found online about customer service were concerning. Some people did get refunds when there were problems (which means at least they have people answering the phones) but there were plenty of complaints of long delivery times and still having to pay shipping charges when an order was messed up and had to be returned.

I have finally gotten around to writing a review for 1800 Contacts. Basically, it is who I would use based on what I've found so thus far. You have to first do a ltitle shopping around online to find a good price on the particular contacts you want to order and then do a price match with 1-800 Contacts. Their usual prices are nothing special, but it seems they have an excellent price matching option, which most people say goes smoothly (of course, that can change, so more recent feedback here or in the 1800 contacts thread would be greatly appreciated. The main reason I'd suggest going with them over some of the other companies is their reputation for very good customer service. Many of the other online retailers don't have the best reputations. Things are usually fine as long as there aren't any complications with an order, no matter where you purchase from. However, if there are problems, it's good to know that the company has a reputation of resolving complaints.

I have been ordering from 1-800-contacts for years. Their customer service is amazing!!!! They will price match the lowest priced contacts you can find. I would never buy from any other company. I tell all my friends that they have the best customer service reps. that I have every dealt with.