Do you need glasses?
Maybe you prefer contacts?
Either way, eyewear (like most other things) is a pretty expensive thing in Australia.
Being a small market, Australia doesn’t have as much competition in the eyewear space as Europe or the US.
Furthermore, unless you have private health insurance, you have to cough up the cost of your prescription glasses, Sunnies and contacts out of your own pocket. Even with private health insurance, you are often slugged with a hefty ‘gap’ payment if you want the latest designer frames.
Well, in this post we would like to show you how to get the best value eyewear regardless of where you are in Australia and you won’t even have to leave the house for it.
Yes, if you happen to live in regional Australia where often competition is a lot less than in the capital cities (or even non-existent altogether), you can still get access to best value eyewear and the latest designer lenses and sunglasses just like the city folk.
We would like to introduce to you to an Australian optical retailer who is doing us all very proud on the world stage.
Their founders are Australian and they started their operations here but have since expanded to become one of the leading online optical retailers in the world with sites operating across Asia, Europe, the US and Latin America, as well as a significant presence here.
One of the main reasons for their tremendous growth is that they have introduced technology and user experience that has simply never been seen before, when it comes to buying glasses and contacts.
These guys have really shaken up the consumer scene when it comes to buying specs, sunnies and contacts, have strong links to our country and are doing a lot of good things (including a very big charity project) on the world stage.
They also provide a best price guarantee and will beat any price from any retailer anywhere in the world, either online or offline.
If you make your purchase during February 2015 (i.e. this month), we will even provide you with some coupon codes to score an extra discount.
But how can you buy glasses online without being able to try them on? Good question!
Well, as we mentioned already, they have developed proprietary technology which allows you to try any frames in the comfort of your own home and get an exact idea of how they will look on you once they turn up at your door. This is currently the most advanced online fitting technology for eyewear in the world!
To add to that, they also offer easy and hassle-free returns if you are not happy for whatever reason with the eyewear you got.
They also provide full warranty on the frames you buy and even allow you to claim on your private health insurance, if you have one.
Before we go any further however, we want to point out that if you need multi-focal lenses, research conducted both in Australia and overseas has shown that there is an increased likelihood that an online optical store (however sophisticated it may be) would get your lenses wrong.
Therefore, we suggest you consider using a traditional optical store or only consider online optical retailers that offer free and hassle-free returns. The mob we talk about in this post certainly does that.
Finally, please keep in mind that Australia’s two largest health funds, Medibank Private and Bupa, don’t pay benefits for purchases at many of the online optical stores, so if you are with these funds, make sure you ask them first if they will pay benefits on purchases with this retailer.
If they don’t, you must take that into account when calculating any savings.
After getting these two disclaimers out of the way, let’s get right into it, shall we?
Review of Vision Direct - the best value online eyewear retailer in Australia
Vision Direct claim to have the biggest range of frames and contact lenses in Australia with 180 different brands and over 80,000 individual products in their catalogue (with 25,000 of them always in stock and available for immediate delivery). No other optical retailer in this country can even come close to that.
All brands come with guaranteed authenticity. No fake brand names here!
All products come with a 24 month warranty and you can also return anything you bought within 100 days of purchase if you are unhappy for whatever reason. No questions asked and no hassle provided you return the product in its original packaging.
Within those 100 days, you can either have the product exchanged for something else or have your money refunded in full.
In addition to that, ALL orders come with free EXPRESS delivery to your door, anywhere in Australia. This means the delivery charges become irrelevant in your buying decision and price comparison.
All prescription glasses and Sunnies come with free Anti-Reflective and Scratch Proof Multi-Hard Coating. The Anti-Reflective Coating is very useful for computer use or for driving at night. While most Optical stores will charge you extra for that, Vision Direct will not.
As far as how to choose the right frame for your face without trying it on in person, Vision Direct have created a simple guide on how to do it.
For those of you who have private health insurance, Vision Direct works directly with over 20 health funds so that you can easily claim your benefits.
Finally, a purchase from Vision Direct also has a ‘feel good’ element to it. For every pair of glasses or sunglasses you buy from them, Vision Direct will donate a pair to Unite for Sight through their ‘Buy one, Give one‘ program. Unite for Sight is a global non-profit which aims to improve eye care standards of poor and disadvantaged people throughout the world.
The ABC TV program AusBiz Asia has recently run a feature on the story of this company and its founders which we personally found fascinating and quite inspiring.
You’ll see the name ‘SmartBuy glasses’ being mentioned there. This is the same company (and same founders) as the business we talk about in this post. It’s just that in Australia, they run their online store under the name Vision Direct.
Just to give you an idea on how far these three everyday blokes from suburban Australia (two of them from migrant families) have come, their CEO (and one of the 3 co-founders) has recently been invited to give an interview to Bloomberg Television, the most respected, most quoted and most watched business & finance news network on the planet.
In this interview he talked about the company and also did a live demonstration in the studio of their innovative and unique virtual ‘try it on’ technology. Check this out.
Sounds good so far? That’s great but obviously we won’t be real Spending Hackers if we didn’t offer you something extra, right? How about a discount, sounds good?
Well, for the month of February, the best value eyewear gets even better value with the following coupon codes:
- RX25AU – 25% off all lenses (frames not included)
- VD10 – $10 off your order on all orders with a minimum of $150 spend
- ValentineAU – This is a special promotion for Valentine’s day so it ends on 10/02 instead of the end of the month like the other two. You get a 10% Discount on all in-stock Sunglasses with a minimum spend of $200.
The above purchase amounts are before any health fund rebates and also don’t include delivery simply because all shipping is FREE 
.
Looks good and you’re keen? Simply click the banner below or this link to start looking for your next value eyewear.
Another option to consider for value eyewear: Sneaking Duck
Sneaking Duck is an online optometrist aiming to market themselves as the ‘choice of hipsters’ with a funky website design and ‘cool’ attitude.
However, other than just aiming to be cool, we think they actually offer some very unique features that are indeed cool!
- Free try at home service. Get 5 frames sent to your door to try on before buying, free and with no obligation to actually purchase anything. Keep in mind that one of their competitors also offers a similar service.
- A virtual fitting service where you can upload a photo of yourself and try on the different frames to see how they would look like on you. Personally, we found this one to be an uber-cool feature after playing around with it for a bit.
- Free delivery worldwide with free returns for any reason within 60 days of purchase but that’s in Australia only.
All glasses or sunnies you buy from them come with the following:
- Quality prescription or non-prescription lenses. All prescription lenses are made in their own lab in Sydney;
- Anti-scratch multicoat or hard coat as standard and for no extra charge;
- Hard case and lens cloth; and
- 12 month warranty
Like Vision Direct, they also offer health fund rebates but, as per the earlier disclaimer, we suggest you check with your fund first whether and how much they would cover if you buy from Sneaking Duck.
While not having the extensive range that Vision Direct has, we feel they have some unique features that make them worth mentioning in this post.
We suggest you check them out and then compare their prices with Vision Direct above. If Sneaking Duck happens to be cheaper, you should get a price match with Vision Direct.
Click on the banner below to get started or you can use this link instead if the banner doesn’t show or you simply have an unexplained hatred towards banners (yea, we hear ya ).
Got any questions or comments? The box below awaits or we are just an email away.
Photo by Cory M. Grenier 
I’ve used Clearly Contacts for years. First pair of glasses FREE, with every account (ie. every email address). You only pay the $10 postage. And if you want a nicer pair, you can pay over 12 months with no interest. They allow returns up-to 365 days, and have a 30 day try-before-you-buy with any pair of glasses.