Costco Optical

• Pricing
• Prescription Eyeglasses
• Designer Sunglasses
• Contact Lenses
• Eye Exams
• Discounts
• Variety of Top-Selling Lenses
• Eye Care Products

Pricing

Costco Optical has become known for its pricing. Though complete pricing is not specifically listed online, the median cost of frames, lenses, and protective coatings is about $180. This is not by any means the lowest price on the market, but it is lower than a number of other eyeglass providers.

Prescription Eyeglasses

The Costco Optical department wants each customer to successfully find the perfect pair of glasses. The following recent features have been made available to better cater to the needs of Costco Optical customers:
Wider front — Frames are made with extra space between each of your temples.
Curved temples — To provide extra headroom to the wearer, a slight temple curve is provided to make sure that the glasses fit perfectly.
Narrow bridge — For those who need a little bit extra bridge support the narrow

Designer Sunglasses

If you are looking to purchase a pair of designer sunglasses but don't want to pay full price for them, Costco Optical sells a number of designer brands for lower prices than the original retailers. The following are some of the brands sold by Costco Optical:

• Kirkland Signature
• Balmain
• Fula
• Hobie
• Kate Spade
• Maui Jim
• Oakley
• Ray-Ban
• Serengeti
• Vera Bradley
• Vera Wang
• XOXO

Contact Lenses

Unlike many of its competitors, Costco Optical sells contact lenses in addition to its prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. Contacts can be ordered online streamlining the purchasing process. The following brands are currently available for sale online:

• Acuvue
• Air Optix
• Avaira
• Biofinity
• BioTrue
• Clariti
• Clearsight
• Dailies
• Freshlook
• Kirkland
• MyDay
• Optima
• Proclear
• Purevision
• Soflens
• Ultra

Eye Exams

One of the challenges of purchasing eyeglasses online or from a retailer is the need to sit down with an ophthalmologist or optometrist and have an eye exam. Costco Optical has hired a number of optometrists to help with vision and eye health exams. This is a service that a number of online retailers are unable to provide. Exams take place at or near your local Costco warehouse. As part of this appointment, the optometrist will check your eyes for astigmatism as well as help identify your prescription. If you would like to schedule an appointment with an eye doctor, you can do so on Costco Optical's website.

Discounts

Costco provides good prices for those who purchase in bulk. In order to maintain this reputation, Costco Optical offers $30 off of a second pair of glasses purchased at the same time of your first purchase.

Variety of Top-selling Lenses

The eyeglass industry offers a number of different lens options to fit the needs of a wide variety of eyeglass wearers. Customers can work with an optician and/or an ophthalmologist to find the perfect lenses for their prescription and personal needs. Costco Optical has a number of different lenses available for sale. They include the following:

• HD Progressive Lenses — These lenses help provide high definition vision at any distance. They come with an anti-reflective treatment and are custom made for your prescription and frame selection.
• Bifocal Lenses — With a separating line in the middle, bifocal lenses are made to help with both near and distance vision.
• Single Vision Lenses — For those who only need lenses to correct one distance, the single vision lens are a great choice.
• Polarized Lenses — The polarized lenses protect your eyes against glare and also block 100 percent of UV rays. For an additional cost, they can be made with a silver, gold, or blue mirror coating.
• Transitions Photochromic Lenses — Transition lenses provide users with both prescription eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses. These lenses are perfectly clear while you are indoors and begin to darken immediately upon exposure to the sun. They also help protect against harmful blue light, reduce glare, eye fatigue and strain, and block 100 percent of UV rays. A specialty drivewear version of these transition lenses is also available helping reduce excess light and optimizing color contrast. They activate to a copper color which helps enhance color recognition and depth perception.
• Blue Anti-Reflective Treatment — Blue light rays are known to disrupt the natural sleep cycle and in some cases damage the retina. The blue anti-reflective treatment helps reduce damage to the eye and allows beneficial blue light to pass through for increased clarity.
• Anti-Reflective Treatment — The anti-reflective coating is used to sharpen visual performance, reduce eye fatigue and reflections at night, and decrease the amount of reflection that others can see on the surface of your lenses.
• Multi-functional Lens — These lenses are similar to progressive lenses. The difference is that the intermediate reading area is much larger than it is in progressive lenses. This helps maintain a comfortable head posture while working at a computer and can help reduce eyestrain, tired eyes, and headaches.

Eye Care Products

In addition to prescription eyeglasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses, Costco Optical also sells the following eye care products:

• Lubricant eye drops
• Lens cleaning tissues
• Redness reliever eye drops
• Multi-purpose solution
• Multi-purpose disinfecting solution

• Online Shopping
• Scratched Lenses
• Distortion in Lenses
• Poor Quality Coatings
• Long Wait
• Customer Service
• Must Have a Membership

Online Shopping

When you are looking for eyeglasses, one of the most important factors is being able to select frames that you like. Costco Optical does not provide a section on its website allowing customers to see all of its frames. If you would like to shop for frames, you will need to go to your local Costco warehouse. We hope that Costco Optical adds a frames inventory to its website soon.

Scratched Lenses

Recent Costco Optical reviews have mentioned frustration with lenses getting scratched easily. This has been attributed to cheap materials being used on the lenses. If you have been prone to scratching your glasses in the past, Costco Optical may not be a good idea for you.

Distortion in Lenses

Some customers have mentioned that their glasses have been distorted on the sides of the lenses. Some thought it might be due to an astigmatism, but the majority felt that the lenses were very poorly made, causing a number of problems. A number of these customers stopped using the glasses all together as they felt it was even more damaging to their eyes.

Poor Quality Coatings

The most common complaint found in Costco Optical reviews is that the coatings put on the glasses to protect from blue light, UV rays, etc. have begun peeling shortly after purchasing the glasses. Some have peeled from the sides, while others have begun peeling from random places in the middle of the lenses. This has made wearing the glasses very difficult and frustrating.

Long Wait

There have been a number of complaints about the wait time at Costco Optical centers. If you are planning to go to a physical location to get help from an optician with your glasses, plan to be there for a good amount of time. Some customers have waited for anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour.

Customer Service

Costco Optical reviews have not been very positive when discussing customer service. Not only have customers waited for long periods of time, but they have felt that the customer service representatives have not been very helpful. Customers who have returned glasses or tried to discuss issues with recently purchased glasses have not been pleased with the efforts made to solve the problems.

Must Have a Membership

In order to purchase eyeglasses from Costco optical, you have to have a Costco membership. If you do not have a membership and do not want to purchase one, you will need to look elsewhere for your eyeglasses.

If you shop at Costco, this is a great way to kill two birds with one stone. If you do not currently have an eye doctor and need to find out what your prescription is, you can do this after purchasing your groceries. If you are on a tight budget, it may be beneficial to look at a couple other companies to see if you can find a price that is better for you. If you are worried that you will damage your glasses easily, you also might want to look for a company that provides quality protection coatings.