The locally made lenses still exists but it's becoming very rare. When I was a kid my parents went to a one-hour place, that made them on the spot. It's still possible but not economical. Not that they passed the savings to the consumer of course. Gotta love economies of scale.
If forgot to mention sales commissions as I was talking about cost of goods. But a variable compensation for the sales person, is a lot of your cost if you are in a retail setting. Believe it or not, your optometrists gets paid commission too (if an employee) as does the person at the desk. It's a sales heavy business. Buy eyedrops, buy lens cleaner, buy here - we really don't want you to walk out the door with your prescription! We have a metric called "capture rate" that our commission is attached to!!
It's not too bad but was a surprise to learn it's much more retail than medical (as a business). I think in most the world it's not even necessary to see a doctor to get glasses, like in the US. I usually leave and buy somewhere else because my doctor just has a crappy selection of frames, every single time, he gives me the prescription when I ask. Then I have to ask for the pupillary distance and he acts like he doesn't know what that is. "Why do you need that?" Because if I buy online they'll ask, "Oh yeah, I can take that measurement".
If forgot to mention sales commissions as I was talking about cost of goods. But a variable compensation for the sales person, is a lot of your cost if you are in a retail setting. Believe it or not, your optometrists gets paid commission too (if an employee) as does the person at the desk. It's a sales heavy business. Buy eyedrops, buy lens cleaner, buy here - we really don't want you to walk out the door with your prescription! We have a metric called "capture rate" that our commission is attached to!!
It's not too bad but was a surprise to learn it's much more retail than medical (as a business). I think in most the world it's not even necessary to see a doctor to get glasses, like in the US. I usually leave and buy somewhere else because my doctor just has a crappy selection of frames, every single time, he gives me the prescription when I ask. Then I have to ask for the pupillary distance and he acts like he doesn't know what that is. "Why do you need that?" Because if I buy online they'll ask, "Oh yeah, I can take that measurement".