Cheapest Contact Lenses
Vision is often not covered under health insurance plans. Its the cheap way out for the employer. For this reason hundreds of thousands of people per day need to buy glasses or contacts at full price on their own. Such a situation happened to a personal friend of BargainBomb.com (true story). Let’s refer to this friend as Allison. Allison noticed her vision getting worse so decided to get an eye appointment at a local Costco. After the Doctor examined her, she got a stronger prescription for contact lenses. She figured she was already at Costco so she would get the lenses there. She needed a year supply of Acuvue Advance contact lenses which comes out to be 8 boxes (4 boxes for the left eye and 4 boxes for the right eye). She was quoted $18.75 per box plus tax as this was a retail location. Allison decided to do some price shopping online using BargainBomb.com and came up with the following prices:
|
Merchant |
Price Per Box |
Mail In Rebate |
Coupon |
Shipping |
Tax |
Final Price |
| Costco | $18.75 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $12 | $162 |
| 1800Contacts | $24.99 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $159.92 |
| ACLens | $17.95 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $113.60 |
| JustLenses | $18.95 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $113.12 |
| Lens.com | $18.95 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $113.12 |
| LensMart | $18.95 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $105.60 |
| LensWorld | $18.99 | $30 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $121.92 |
| VisionDirect | $18.99 | $30 | 15% | $0 | $0 | $94.28 |
All of the above prices are for 8 boxes of AcuVue Advance contact lenses. As you can see there is a huge difference when you price shop and an even bigger advantage when you can find a good coupon. Allison ultimately placed her order at Vision Direct because of the far lower price on this particular brand of contact lenses. VisionDirect ended up being $67.72 cheaper then Costco and $11.32 cheaper then its closest online competitor. This is a real life example of how using the internet can save you money on the things you need to buy and keep more money in your pocket over the long haul.
What did we learn here?
1) Always price shop.
2) Use the internet to compare prices against physical stores.
3) Online shopping saves you from having to pay tax if you order from out of state.
4) BargainBomb.com can save you significant money, so check our coupons before placing an order at an online store.
Happy Shopping!