I've been buying my contacts over the internet for at least the last few years, ever since I noticed I could save over 25% off from retail prices. My main provider has been
Eyesonline. Their prices have always been excellent, their service most satisfactory and delivery has been either $5 or $6 an order - amortised over 2 boxes this has always been rather cheap.
After my annual checkup I reordered 4 boxes this time - enough for a full yearly supply for me - and took advantage of Eyesonline's free shipping on orders over $125. I don't expect my prescription to change in the next year so this seemed like a good approach this time.
Recently two friends have asked about getting Contacts over the web, so I decided to do a little cheking up on the state of affairs. There are at least 10 sites now in easy reach of a google search. Of these I noted a few had identical pricing schemes (interesting, eh?),
OPSM Direct are still horribly overpriced (the Telstra of the Online contact lens world) and there are now a couple good competitors to Eyesonline.
The first is
Webcontacts - they have a very nice site but their prices are a smidgen higher and I don't like their return policy.
The two that I may consider in future are
NetOptical (a real shoestring operation by the looks of it, but being cost focussed means they meet my #1 requirement); and
Eyecontacts. They have similar pricing to the others but freight is charged at $8.50 per order - depending on how many boxes you order this may or may not be cheaper. For my current lenses (B&L Purevision) they are only $1 more expensive per box. But for a friend who is looking for Focus Dailies the have a tremendous offer of $65 per box for the 90-pack, where Eyesonline offer them for $82.
Definitely something to look into again further next year, before reordering.
