If you are planning on a change of sunglasses this season, do you feel that nothing says “you” better than the latest designer merchandise you can buy at a highfalutin’ specialist retailer? People certainly are throwing their cash at these accessories that you can spend so much on for so little. If you have real high-end designer brands like Chanel or Prada in mind, you can easily come out of the store about $400 poorer; and if you want prescription lenses installed, you can consider yourself a couple hundred dollars poorer still. Even mass-market designer brands like Ray-Ban can set you back at least $150. Does anyone understand what is going on here? How can those thin stalks of metal (or high-tech material) actually cost you hundreds of dollars? You might think that in an economy like this, people wouldn’t be spending too much on indefensible luxury purchases like this. But they are. At sunglass outlets at the expensive malls all over the country, they have been reporting nothing but slowing sales year on year.
Here’s the thing – for the price of one of these, you could walk in into your pharmacy and perhaps get ten of their good quality shades; are the expensive designer sunglasses really worth the price? Do they really give you better protection for your eyes from the sun’s rays or give you more comfort wearing them? Let’s try to break down the appeal that designer shades have, and see how it all adds up.
To begin with, when you wonder why your itty-bitty sunglasses have to cost you hundreds of dollars, perhaps you really are making sense. The markup on these items really is sky high. One can certainly understand that they should charge $100 or so for precision lenses what with all the high quality work that needs to go into it all, but why do they charge hundreds for a fraction of an ounce of metal? Would you believe that these companies make a 60% profit on what you pay them for their product? That’s one of the best margins of any business on earth. Of course the design expertise they put in and the brand value do add to the cost, but this has to be a bit greedy.
But leaving all cost issues aside, are those lenses (or tinted glasses) really much better for your eyes? The thing is, almost all the money you pay is so that you can flash that impressive brand name at your friends. Almost nothing of the premium is applied to the quality of the lenses. For anything you pay more than $100 for,they stop applying your cash to quality. You’re paying for nothing but the brand name. Eye surgeons don’t usually buy premium glasses either, according to a study. The thing is, it doesn’t cost much to make great polarizing glasses or to build ultraviolet protection into them. Past the $80 dollar mark, there’s pretty much nothing more you can build into them. And anyway, designer stuff isn’t something you can keep for very long. You do need to keep up with the times. If you bought a new pair every two years and dropped $200 on each pair, you could probably end up spending $25,000 on sunglasses in your lifetime. Is that really worth it?