There was a short documentary done by 60 minutes and posted on reddit yesterday. Apparently the majority of eyewear companies in the world are under the monopoly of one company(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica) that keeps it’s brand name hidden and sells it’s material under different brand names like Ray-Ban or Vogue which are all made by the same company. It also owns the majority of eyewear retail stores. It controls the prices in the market, controls what brands are sold and refuses competitor brands in their retail stores.
This video was very interesting and enlightening to me. I was certainly not aware of this company before and never heard the name, and I’m close to legally blind without prescription eyewear. The situation seems very similar to the Diamond industry who are also under the monopoly of one company which is De Beers.
At my old job it was my responsibility to find these companies. There are maybe three or four very huge ones. They own almost all glasses brands. It’s not hard to find them if you know where to look. After all, there are newspapers that cover only this business. It took me maybe four hours to set this all up for my former employer.
You still have other options. I suggest Warby Parker. The vast majority of their glasses are $95 and include lenses. They have more expensive lines but it’s only about $50 more and they are worth it IMO. The best you can get and still be stylish as fuck. Trust me.
Never heard of this company before. I think I’ll give them a shot since they have that try at home program. Good find. Been looking for some new glasses.
so umbrella does exist, but instead of protecting your head its company that protects your eyes all they have to do is slip the word pharmaceutical in there and the stage is set
You won’t regret it. They really are the best in eyewear right now. They’re very popular in NY because of their prices, services, and the at-home program.
My glasses say Luxottica right on them. (They also say “Made in China”, so I guess they don’t come from the fancy Italian factory.)
The multitude of brand names isn’t so huge; you might say it’s a bit analogous to Foxcon making electronics under a whole bunch of brand names.
The insidious thing is that they also own the largest eyeglass retailers and insurer. Normally those entities would seek to leverage their buying power to lower prices, but since they’re company stores they have no motive to do that.
It’s not that dramatic; they’re just in De Beers vaults, not in the ocean. De Beers at one point owned 90% of the diamond mines in the world and restricted production to drive up prices. (And, at least until recently, the smaller players were pretty ok with this since they could sell at the higher prices too.) They’ve actually plead guilty to fixing the price of industrial diamonds ('94) and settled a class-action suit over gem-quality diamonds ('06).
