How do I get online prescription glasses?

http://glassyeyes.blogspot.com/ is a blog that all about buying glasses online including reviews of the each of the different major sellers plus information about discounts and sales. You can go the stores, fill out an order to get the price and then just not buy - that will give the real cost, including any protective coatings, charges for lighter weight lenses etc. My eyes aren't as bad as yours (-5.5). I decided to try out $39glasses with a sunglass order - lightweight progressive lenses. They work fine and cost about half as much. You need to get a calculation of your pupilliary distance and you probably need to get the frames adjusted once they arrive so you need to find a friendly optometrist that will do that for you (often for free). I got most recent pair for the optometrist since they covered by insurance which paid the half the cost. Same style frames, the only change was a small increase in the reading part. When they came, they were just awful. I went back to the store and manager did some tinkering and marking the lenses and ordered a new pair of lenses which are working OK. Since the lenses did meet the ordering specifications, I'm not sure what would have happened if I had bought them on-line.

I've bought glasses from Zenni and 39glasses.com and have been very, very happy. I went from paying $400 for trendy glasses to less than a tenth of that. Once, I went nuts at Zenni and bought ten pairs of $8 glasses, some in crazy designs, on the theory that for $80, something would look and feel good. And several did. I ended up liking one pair more than the rest and really only wear those on a daily basis, but I now have some sky blue argyle frames in case I feel whimsical and some futuristic frameless ones and a metric ton of different prescription sunglasses. Whenever I get off my duff, I plan to send the misfires to a charity that sends unwanted eyeglasses to the third world. (Zenni even caught that I had screwed up my prescription on one order and emailed me to double check it.) I can't recommend switching to internet glasses too highly.

Two weeks ago I ordered two pairs from http://www.greateyeglasses.com/shop/home.php. I had a great experience with them, both using the website and with customer service. You've already got your prescription, so you're mostly set. Your current glasses should have some of the measurements that you will need printed on the inside of the arm - it will look like "55 16-135" or similar. Those numbers are measurements, in millimeters, of the width of each lens opening, the width of the nose bridge, and the length of the arm. Use the numbers of your current glasses as a guide. You can search for a range of sizes, for example lens openings between 50 and 60 mm. You will then take some other measurements that are not printed on the glasses arm, like the total width of the glasses, using a regular ruler and use an online in-mm calculator to convert. As mentioned by others, the pupillary distance is the only thing that you might need help gathering. Fill in all this info in the form (it will save your measurements if you login, so you don't have to retype them each time) and order. My order ended up being two pairs for just under $50 including shipping. The first pair came in four days. I emailed customer service to find out about the second pair since I was expecting both in the same package, and a rep emailed me back within ten minutes. She said that the second pair came from a different lab that took longer, and would arrive within a week. They did, and all was well. I love my new, cheap glasses and will never buy from a rip-off store again.

Thanks, everyone, this was really helpful! I'm going to order glasses from Zenni today.

Perhaps they've improved, but I had ordered a pair of glasses from Zenni two summers ago, and the lenses were horrible. Thick, distorting, magnifying, headache inducing, and my prescription was not very high.

Huh - we're looking at using http://www.warbyparker.com/ for my husband this winter. We like the site because they have a "virtual" try on feature (upload a photo of yourself to try with their frames), and they also do home tryons - they'll send you frames to try on before deciding. Hubby has pretty bad eyesight too, we'll be paying the base $95 plus a $30 upcharge for thinner lenses. Anyone else used them yet?

I am a Zenni customer several times over. Many of my co-workers now buy their glasses from them. I've always been very pleased. Never pay retail again!

I bought my mum several pairs at Zenni - progressive high-index - and she loves them. They were about $80 and still going strong over a year later.

I bought from Eyebuydirect and am very happy with the glasses. For my first pair, I picked a frame that was very similar in style to my old frames, both so I wouldn't have to worry about sizing and also because I knew how they would look on my face. For my PD, I actually called up my old glasses shop (Lenscrafters) and asked if they had it recorded on my old prescription. They were able to give me their numbers, so I didn't have to measure the PD myself.