A friend of mine owns a spectacle shop. To be precise, she has three shops in prime location shopping centres. As far as I know, the monthly rental of retail shops in those premises rates at about $18 per sq ft. Given the estimate area to be about 700 sq ft, we're talking a cool $12,600 a month. We're not including staff salary and overheads. Now, how does a optical shop reap in that much per month? The answer is obvious isn't it? High mark up!

So, if you have a pair of prescriptive glasses that's about to fall to bits, the world is not going to end yet. There is a site offering great eye glasses and frames at a mere cost of what the normal shop charges. From $8.00 a pair, you cannot go wrong. How are they keeping up their low prices? Well, they're their own manufacturers and they do not sell to third parties, so there's no middlemen cut. You can get them from zennioptical.com. You will find a huge selection of frames, with single vision lens, sunsensor (potochromic)lens, tinted suglasses lens, bifocal lens and progressive lens.