Recently, a trend has begun in the contact lens wearing community to consider buying your contact lenses from online stores rather than the traditional method of ordering through your trusted optometrist in Brampton or Mississauga, ON. While these sites may tout cheap prices and convenient to-your-door delivery, there are a number of advantages that these online stores are either unwilling or unable to deliver, that your trusted family optometrist is able and willing to provide. Below, we outline some of the major advantages of ordering through your optometrist:
Open Box Policy
In the eyecare world, prescriptions change. It's a simple fact of life. But, if you ordered your contact lenses from an online store and have already opened the box, you are unlikely to be able to return them, even though the contact lenses you currently have are no longer the prescription you need for your best vision. Your options are either to continue on with sub-par contacts, or pay full price all over again to get another box of contacts that fit your new prescription. And then, of course, hope that your prescription doesn't change again.
This is not so if you ordered from your optometrist. Most, if not all, optometric practices have an “open box policy,” meaning that if your prescription changes, you are able to come to your eye doctor's office in Mississauga or Brampton, ON and exchange your old prescription for your updated one for free, even if the box is already open.
The Power of Rebates
Many online contact lens retailers tout low prices and great deals that they say you are unable to get if you order from your optometrist. The truth is that, while the top-line price on some online sites may appear to save you money, the bottom-line often costs you more money than if you had ordered from your eye doctor's office. This is because many eye doctors will redeem special rebates for their patients, allowing your doctor to cut costs for you at the bottom-line. Online services are often unaware of these rebates or require you to redeem them on your own in order to save money on your contact lenses.
Personal Relationships and Expertise
The role of your eye doctor is not only to help you see your best, but also to help you safeguard your overall eye health and visual comfort. Part of fulfilling this role is maintaining a personal relationship with each and every patient. The same cannot be said of online contact lens retailers, with which you are unlikely to have any personal relationship at all. Whereas your eye doctor maintains a relationship centered on your overall visual health, an online contact lens retailer maintains a relationship centered around your money and takes no responsibility for your overall eye health.
If there are problems that result from your contact lenses, such as eye infection or dry eyes, you are more likely to be able to solve these issues by speaking to a professional, trained and educated eye doctor with whom you have a personal relationship than by speaking to a customer service agent whom you have never, and likely will never, meet, and who is there solely to fill orders and make sure the money keeps flowing.
Our Vision Centres also offer a wide selection of contact lenses that meets or beats any selection found on contact lens websites, and offer a 100% refund on the cost of the contact lens eye exam if you develop difficulties such as an eye infection from your contact lenses.
For more information, and to experience our superior contact lens expertise, contact us today.