note: while believed to be accurate at the time it was written, information provided is not updated regularly & may be out of date

Zenni Optical
"Global Price and Volume leader in Very Affordable yet high quality & stylish prescription eyeglasses"
http://www.zennioptical.com

• Pricing - Zenni's always been amongst those with low pricing. They currently have some of the lowest prices starting at $8.

Introduction:

Zenni Optical is located in the US (California), although they appear to ship most of their orders from Hong Kong. Pricing in USD. They sell single-vision and bi-focal/progressive lenses. They a 1-800 number, fax number, email address, mailing address, and online form for contact. Payment methods include Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, Diner's Club, JCB, Carte Blanche, Australian Bankcard, Discover/Novus, Switch, Solo, and enRoute. The BBB has them listed with a "A-" rating with 216 complaints, 181 of which were resolved, and 35 of which were "Administratively Closed".

Impressions:

The 2009 Incident: During the first few months of 2009, many Zenni customers experienced delivery delays, often not receiving orders for well over a month. Unanswered calls and a full voice-mailbox compounded the issue for many of those customers. BBB complaints skyrocketed (bringing them to a "D" rating at the time), and "zenni optical complaints" became the leading search term for EyeglassRetailerReviews.com. At the time of this writing, most of the issues appear to have been worked out, but the length of time and lack of communication seriously damaged Zenni's reputation in the process. Update: Throughout the remainder of 2009 and beginning of 2010, issues reported with Zenni through EyeglassRetailerReviews.com have been relatively few and far between.

The first word that comes to mind when looking at Zenni's site is "simple". The layout's plain, but easy to navigate. 2 clicks and you're already filling out your prescription. While basic can be nice, the downside is the features - there are none. Lens options tend to be fewer than what most other retailers offer as well. (Update: Zenni has recently increased their lens options, from an initial 7 to a total of 20 including various high index lenses as well as photochromic/Transitions lenses, making them a much more competitive contender in this area). What Zenni does have going for them is that they've been around for years and been quite popular throughout.

Frame selection is quite good. At the time of this writing, there were 39 frames to choose from in the $8.00 range alone, most offered in 5 colors which brings it up to approximately 200 frames in that one price range alone. They also have a variety of frames for $9.95, $12.95, $15.95, and $19.00. Beyond that, they also carry memory titanium, rimless, aluminum alloy, and quite a bit more in the way of options although prices vary in those categories, quite a few beyond the $19.00 mark. All in all, there's a huge selection and prices generally are quite low.

Single-vision lenses come free with the frames. Bifocals add $17 and Progressives add $21.95 to the price tag. There are very few lens indexes offered. Single-vision lenses come in 3 6 indexes, plus 4 photochromic options. Bi-focals and progressives each come in just 1 index. Bi-focals come in 2 indexes, and there are 6 progressive lens options. Anti-scratch and UV are free, but an AR coating is extra. Photochromic lenses are offered for both single-vision and progressive lenses, although only in grey. 7 tint colors are offered, each with 3 levels of intensity.

Polycarbonate lenses with a 1.59 index are now clearly selectable as an option when choosing lenses through Zenni's site. Note that Zenni's "Lens/Materials" page indicates that their basic lens is a "polycarbonate composite". After some research on the issue after receiving an inquiry, it would appear that the lenses offered by Zenni are probably not true polycarbonate. The term "polycarbonate composite" could technically be used to refer to a variety of lenses (even CR39 plastic lenses are made of a polycarbonate material - however they are typically advertised as CR39 or plastic to minimize confusion - doing otherwise may indicate deception). True polycarbonate lenses however tend to carry an index of 1.59 (Zenni's are 1.57).

Website and Ordering:

Zenni's website is about as plain as it gets. It's very functional and well organized though. Navigating/browsing is very easy and straightforward. The website does lack the features that many other sites have. There's no method for seeing how the frames might look on you or on someone else for instance. A single view of the glasses is all that's offered, although to be fair I don't know of many people who would love the glasses as seen from the front and not like them when viewed from the back.

The ordering process is easy. Once you've selected a frame, you fill out the details (lens, coating, tint, etc) on the same page that you enter your prescription. There are little ? bubbles by each option - for example the PD measurement. Clicking the ? creates a little pop-up with helpful information. One minor hiccup is that before you enter in your location, it shows a little box to select the shipping method which by default always says "US" and can't be changed in the selection box. It does eventually change when you enter your shipping info, but it might be a cause for confusion for international customers who look at it and perhaps assume that Zenni does not ship to their location.

Update: Recently, the site received a bit of a facelift, and browsing through frames now feels a little more informative, while still retaining much of the simplicity from the previous design. Only 1 view of each frame is still offered, but available information is well displayed. Frame dimensions are listed beneath each frame (as well as weight although no units are given, so unless you guess right the weight probably won't help except to compare the available frames against each other). Unfortunately, for someone who doesn't know what the measurements mean, the description/picture isn't available until you've actually picked a frame and then moused over the Frame Size box. There's still no "try-on" feature, or "see how these lenses look on somebody" feature.

The little ? bubbles have been improved upon - they're now mouseovers, and the information/detail they provide is quite good and is even layered in some cases - for example, if you mouse over the Prescription & Lens Type, all the lens types are listed with a short description with their own ? bubbles, and mousing over those will go into further detail.

Ordering remains relatively easy. There's a large amount of information about every option via the ? bubbles, everything's on one page, and while lenses are all packed into one list, they're color-coded to differentiate between single/bi/progressive lenses. Despite seeming very simplistic, the order page is a "smart" page in that if you try to choose an option that isn't available (adding bi-focal lenses to a frame that doesn't support them, or adding tint to photochromic lenses for example), a message will pop up telling you that the option isn't available.

Pricing and Value:

Since Zenni offers such a large selection of glasses at the $8.00 price point, I've used that as a basis for the chart below. Note that shipping and an AR coating (if you choose it) add to that number.

As far as value goes, for a cheap pair of glasses, Zenni's tough to beat. $8.00 gets you an anti-scratch and UV coating, not to mention a fair selection of frames in that price range. Even looking at some of the other offerings, some of their Bendable Titanium frames for example can be had for $12.95. They're certainly competitive price-wise for just about any type of frame you might be looking at.

A basic pair of single-vision lenses comes to $12.95 shipped in the US, $17.95 shipped to Canada, and $17.95 shipped worldwide.
A basic pair of bi-focal lenses comes to $29.95 shipped in the US, $34.95 shipped to Canada, and $34.95 shipped worldwide.
A basic pair of progressive lenses comes to $41.95 shipped in the US, $46.95 shipped to Canada, and $46.95 shipped worldwide.

Click here to go to the Zenni Optical purchase review

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