Cold Brew!
This was my tag-a-long friend yesterday morning/early afternoon while I helped my mom pick out new frames for her glasses. It was a tiring, frustrating day. She has a very, very limited budget and of course nice frames aren’t usually cheap plus she’s got progressive lenses which are expensive as well.
We started the day at Factory Optical, and at that point she was dead set against anything in a different style than what she’s already wearing (metal frames, only along the top of the frames in a coppery colour). It’s not that her current frames look bad, but they look really dated. So, we found a few frames that were nice but they weren’t exciting or much of a change other than a slight colour difference (basically). But she wasn’t sure…
So then we went to a place called Cornwall Optical. We weren’t able to find a single frame anyone could agree on so we didn’t even get to the point of pricing out her lenses on top of the frames – but the woman working there was phenomenal because she was able to break my mom out of the super dated look she was going for and got her open to even looking at more modern frames. Plus, she was wonderful in that she was super honest about what worked and didn’t. I love sales associates like that.
Then, the 3rd place – this time since she was more open to looking at newer/trendier frames we were very quickly to find two sets of frames that were gorgeous on her as well as a more modern look. I’m not joking when I say that they easily took ten years off her appearance. The associate there was wonderful too; he pointed out that the looks she was picking for herself were very safe and similar to what she already wears (without my saying anything) and then was able to suggest modern frames with things in common with her current frames, but not identical to them. Sadly, the cost of frames and lenses there was ridiculous. Over $1000 for the frames and lenses. That was easily the most expensive place we went to all day.
Finally, we went to a fourth store in frustration, ready to quite. What store? Sears. And what did we find? One of the pairs of frames she’d fallen in love with at the last store for a much more reasonable, affordable price. Plus, Sears’ price for progressives was better too! So, she ordered her glasses! After three and a half hours of straight glasses shopping we were done.
Thank God I had a sweet, dessert tea with me to sip on throughout. Without something to drink, I would have lost it at the second shop. I HATE HATE HATE shopping, and four places to get one thing (even if it’s something as important as glasses) would drive me absolutely mad. It took me a grand total of 20 minutes to pick out my frames a few months ago…
Dude, Zenni Optical online.
Nah, she didn’t want to look online because she wanted to be able to ‘hold them in her hands’ and see them on her face immediately :/