Shopping Discussion

Clearly contacts ships out 6000-7000 orders a day?!

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  • Mar 3rd, 2012 4:21 pm
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Deal Addict
Nov 5, 2009
1104 posts
277 upvotes
Montreal

Clearly contacts ships out 6000-7000 orders a day?!

Was watching CBC's Marketplace tonight with their take on prescription glasses outrageous ripoff. They compared clearly contacts with Lens crafters. Showed a bit of clearly contacts' premises and the claim by their CEO of them shipping 6-7 thousand orders a day. I have bought glasses from them and am satisfied but never knew they had those kind of numbers and I must say, I'm impressed.
69 replies
Deal Addict
Apr 30, 2007
2574 posts
1890 upvotes
Glad to see they're doing well. I've been nothing but satisfied with Clearly Contacts.
Newbie
Feb 24, 2012
15 posts
VANCOUVER
redflag5050 wrote: Was watching CBC's Marketplace tonight with their take on prescription glasses outrageous ripoff. They compared clearly contacts with Lens crafters. Showed a bit of clearly contacts' premises and the claim by their CEO of them shipping 6-7 thousand orders a day. I have bought glasses from them and am satisfied but never knew they had those kind of numbers and I must say, I'm impressed.

if you look at their financial profile they are losing huge amount of money, i think something is wrong ..if they deliver 6000-7000 order every day why they are losing money each year...i dont know....it is confusing......I think these kinds of services will make a lot of health problems in future...We have only two eye to see and we should see specialist to take care of them...
Deal Expert
Jan 7, 2002
29711 posts
29133 upvotes
Waterloo, ON
MTOUDEHFALLAH wrote: if you look at their financial profile they are losing huge amount of money, i think something is wrong...
And if you look at the poster's profile ("Join Date: Feb 25th, 2012... Posts: 1") you might think that something is wrong, i.e. that the poster is likely an optician, optomertrist or other competitor of Clearly Contacts with an axe to grind and FUD to spread :rolleyes:
veni, vidi, Visa
Jr. Member
Mar 14, 2006
124 posts
44 upvotes
Waterloo
They keep giving away free glasses, obviously they are losing money in the hopes of building a large customer base.

I would expect the 6-7k orders includes their contact lens business in Canada and the US as well.
Deal Addict
Aug 28, 2010
3521 posts
1223 upvotes
Halifax
Coastal contacts, which owns Clearly Contacts, is a public company and their annual report is online.


http://investors.coastalcontacts.com/Th ... s/files/Q4 and Fiscal Year End 2011 MD & A_v001_g8j1yk.pdf


For the three months that ended October 2011, they shipped 227,000 glasses. That works about to around 2500 per day. I know they also advertise for every pair of their in-house frames you buy, they donate a pair to charity. I'm unsure if these charity pairs are included in the 227,000 number.


And they lost a small amount of money in 2011. Their total sales were $184 million and they lost $5 million. They say this is because of all of the promotions they are running and they don't seem concerned by the losses, as they have about $80 million in assets to draw from.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Oct 22, 2007
9280 posts
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London
LOL, maybe 7000 pairs on the freebie days. I doubt they are consistently doing that every day.
Deal Expert
Jun 14, 2001
15556 posts
1026 upvotes
Kinda sleazy of Marketplace to complain about the price being above $100 despite advertising $50 glasses when there's so many mens (and even more for women and kids):

- 4 below $20 + $10 shipping
- 35 below $40 + $10 shipping
- 43 below $50 + $10 shipping

But kinda sleazy for them to auto check $30 worth of items under "CHOOSE YOUR COATINGS" settings.

Funny thing is in one of the reviews someone mentioned the $10 anti-scratch coating washed off with water when he was cleaning his glasses.

As such I suppose if I were to use one of these services I might as well get it from one of those Chinese sites mentioned in various hot deals threads to likely get better prices and selections.
Should we have open retail markets to bring more UK and US retailers to Canada?wegmans-tops-trader-joes-americas-favou ... #p27788812
Deal Expert
Jun 14, 2001
15556 posts
1026 upvotes
bylo wrote: i.e. that the poster is likely an optician, optomertrist or other competitor of Clearly Contacts with an axe to grind and FUD to spread :rolleyes:

Yep. That's why even if I don't get my next pair of glasses online they'll be from a dollar store or Wal-Mart optical. So many douches out there trying to pad the bill...

I noticed that there has been a real lessening of competition for glasses the last few years (used to be a chain called Precision Optical that had good prices and selection but the local branch became a Lenscrafters a few years ago) but didn't realize that Lenscrafters, Sears Optical and Pearle Vision were all the same company.

I'm surprised that the insurance companies aren't doing something against this scam if the glasses are so cheap to make usually.

You'd think they would have been on the forefront of promoting customers getting cheaper glasses (offering cash back if they get them cheap online or at WM etc).
Should we have open retail markets to bring more UK and US retailers to Canada?wegmans-tops-trader-joes-americas-favou ... #p27788812
Deal Addict
Aug 30, 2011
2248 posts
908 upvotes
Edmonton
Isn't Zenni a good alternative too?
Deal Guru
User avatar
Dec 25, 2003
11091 posts
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Vancouver
bylo wrote: And if you look at the poster's profile ("Join Date: Feb 25th, 2012... Posts: 1") you might think that something is wrong, i.e. that the poster is likely an optician, optomertrist or other competitor of Clearly Contacts with an axe to grind and FUD to spread :rolleyes:

+1 so obvious :rolleyes:
Deal Addict
User avatar
Aug 19, 2010
1800 posts
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Vancouver
I watched the show and at the end of it all, It came off to me as if they were just promoting Clearly Contacts. Maybe they weren't but it's quite lazy reporting on their part since they chose to compare only Lenscrafters and CC. They didn't bother covering other places such as Costco which is supposed to have the best quality/value as well as any other retailers they could have done. Furthermore, just like the Lenscrafters VP said; designer brands are always going to cost allot more (Chanel, Armani, Emporio Armani, D&G etc..). Anything made by designers like that are always such extremely marked up regardless of the product and company making it. It's nothing new and I didn't think the show accomplished much.

Just my opinion
Deal Addict
Nov 5, 2009
1104 posts
277 upvotes
Montreal
Hopefully this CBC report will make people think twice about where they get their glasses from. Maybe this will drive prices down to a logical level. I worked for a lens manufacturer and used to get my glasses for free once a year. Whenever I passed by an optical store, and after seeing their prices, I could not help but think of them as thieves. The prices are absolutely outrageous and a complete ripoff. I still get my free glasses but would never buy anything from the stores.

They say the prices for the "designer" frames will always cost more but how am I to know the frames are genuine and not knockoffs?I have bought from clearly contacts twice already and the price was reasonable at about $220 and am happy with my purchase. Never spend more than $300 for a top tier pair of prescription. Anything more is price gouging.
Deal Expert
Jan 7, 2002
29711 posts
29133 upvotes
Waterloo, ON
I'm due for an eye exam and new glasses this spring. Last time I got the exam and glasses at the UW Optometry school that was featured in the show. The prescription they gave me didn't include PD and I didn't know enough to ask. This time I do and I will, if for no other reason than to hear their hems and haws and excuses :twisted:

The glasses I got last time included generic $85 frames. The lenses are trifocal(*). They cost another $330 including grinding, UV, SR, etc. coatings as well as fitting and adjustments. While that's higher than Clearly Contacts, it's probably less than what I would have paid at Lenscrafters. Besides CC doesn't offer trifocals at any price, probably because they're too hard to measure and fit properly on an online site.

(*) I prefer trifocals over progressives because they have a wider field of view. That's particularly important if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer monitor, especially now that 16:9 aspect ratio is standard.)
veni, vidi, Visa
Deal Expert
Jun 14, 2001
15556 posts
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sandy_beach wrote: I watched the show and at the end of it all, It came off to me as if they were just promoting Clearly Contacts. Maybe they weren't but it's quite lazy reporting on their part since they chose to compare only Lenscrafters and CC. They didn't bother covering other places such as Costco which is supposed to have the best quality/value as well as any other retailers they could have done. Furthermore, just like the Lenscrafters VP said; designer brands are always going to cost allot more (Chanel, Armani, Emporio Armani, D&G etc..). Anything made by designers like that are always such extremely marked up regardless of the product and company making it. It's nothing new and I didn't think the show accomplished much.

Just my opinion

I could see forgetting Costco since it's somewhat of an isolated retailer. I didn't even know they sold glasses.

Although I thought they seemed kinda harsh on Clearly Contacts on the broader level if this spawns more prov's to adopt similar, more liberal, rules for getting glasses in Canada like in B.C. I could see the episode benefiting CC in the long term.
Should we have open retail markets to bring more UK and US retailers to Canada?wegmans-tops-trader-joes-americas-favou ... #p27788812
Member
Jan 16, 2009
242 posts
11 upvotes
I'm guessing that number includes their international shipments - as others have mentioned, they have a Costal glasses site that's for the entire world, but it pretty much the same. And by 'shipping per day' they probably only count 5 days in a week.

I ordered a set of glasses from Clearly Contacts, with the free frames, but it came out to about $150 since I need high-index lenses. Zenni Optical is actually much cheaper if you need more add-on stuff, I actually like the pair I got from there a bit better. Seems they only have generic frames, though.
Newbie
Feb 24, 2012
15 posts
VANCOUVER
there are many retail store which sell contact lenses and eyeglasses cheaper than clearly contacs and they have 2 year warranty and really good service.I dont know why you are trying to convince people that clearly contacts is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!they are giving thousands of free frames to get """like in facebook""" ...thats it....nothing else .....for buying eyeglasses you should try them and you should have 2 yrs warranty....in the meantime why there is cheap and expensicve Camera?? expensive Camera has better lenses....you get what you pay............I asked one of my close friend he is managing a pizza shop...i aksed him how much is the cost of large pizza in your shop and how much you sell it??? you know what answer was???!!! the cost is $2.5 but they sell it $25....this is same in any other business such as mechanic shop, plumbing business, hair dressing.....etc...But if i want to buy eyeglasses i will buy from Lenscrafter than clearly contacts....you know why??? because of the service and quality....i am not too rich to buy cheap eyeglasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Deal Addict
User avatar
Oct 15, 2007
4763 posts
2462 upvotes
MTOUDEHFALLAH wrote: there are many retail store which sell contact lenses and eyeglasses cheaper than clearly contacs and they have 2 year warranty and really good service.I dont know why you are trying to convince people that clearly contacts is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!they are giving thousands of free frames to get """like in facebook""" ...thats it....nothing else .....for buying eyeglasses you should try them and you should have 2 yrs warranty....in the meantime why there is cheap and expensicve Camera?? expensive Camera has better lenses....you get what you pay............I asked one of my close friend he is managing a pizza shop...i aksed him how much is the cost of large pizza in your shop and how much you sell it??? you know what answer was???!!! the cost is $2.5 but they sell it $25....this is same in any other business such as mechanic shop, plumbing business, hair dressing.....etc...But if i want to buy eyeglasses i will buy from Lenscrafter than clearly contacts....you know why??? because of the service and quality....i am not too rich to buy cheap eyeglasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So you think an 800% markup is fair?
Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. - Andre Gide
Deal Addict
Aug 28, 2010
3521 posts
1223 upvotes
Halifax
MTOUDEHFALLAH wrote: But if i want to buy eyeglasses i will buy from Lenscrafter than clearly contacts
Why would you buy from Lenscrafter? You appear to own your own store.


A quick search on your user name brings up a couple of links.

This one indicates that you are a dispensing optician: http://www.optiboard.com/forums/member. ... udehfallah
The search also brings up your likely full name of morteza toudehfallah


And if I search for morteza toudehfallah, it brings up this article which indicates that you are the owner of Rumi Optical on Denman: http://www.wevancouver.com/news/136346118.html


So I'm sure not sure why you would be heading to LensCrafters to buy glasses. Don't you get some type of employee discount from buying from the store you own?

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