Smart shopping moms are very familiar
with Walmart as a good place to get some
nice prices on your everyday essentials,
and maybe do a little bit of people-watching
while you're at it.
But is Walmart a good place to trust
with something as important as your
eyeglasses?
Hi, I'm Cindy from Smart Family Money. I
help you learn how to shop smarter,
save money, and save time so you can get
back to changing the world.
All four of the people in my family wear
eyeglasses and my son
was in eyeglasses as young as age seven,
and back then,
I was really nervous about buying his
first pair of glasses,
Because I was worried he was gonna break
them and I just didn't want to spend too
much money on them and I was really
concerned about the warranty on them so
I took a look at
Walmart. I'd heard they're one of the
best places to get kids glasses
especially.
the first thing I looked at was their
selection of frames. Their selection of
kids frames
is actually one of the best I've seen.
They have a lot of kids frames and they
have a lot of fun colors and characters,
and a lot of the things that appeal
especially to younger kids like my
seven-year-old son.
We were able to find some that he liked
pretty quickly and he was kind of in
that in-between
stage where he was a little bit on the
larger side for kids frames but not
big enough for adult frames at the time,
and that can be a tricky time to find
frames that fit well.
The quality of the frames I thought was
pretty good...
maybe not quite as good as some of the
frames you might get at your eye
doctor's office or some other chains,
but okay good enough especially for a
kid. The next thing I looked at was their
options for lenses.
walmart has some different lens packages
and their
least expensive one is very inexpensive
for lenses which is a great option if
you're just looking for something basic.
Most people choose their middle option
which
that package used to include
anti-scratch and anti-glare but i did
notice they just recently
changed this and their anti-glare
coating
is a separate $50 charge now, which does
increase the price.
Speaking of price overall on my son's
glasses... he did pick out some of the more
expensive
of the children's frames... and the
original price was somewhere around $110
total without insurance. Now
with needing to pay extra for the
anti-glare it would be closer to about
$150 for the total package. If you're
trying to compare it to other ones,
that's a great price compared to your
eye doctor's office where you might pay
$500
or more for a pair of glasses or even
$300 plus for children's glasses.
It's definitely a good price at Walmart.
And speaking of cost.. if you choose some
of their low-cost frames with the
low-cost lenses
you can get a very inexpensive pair of
glasses at Walmart.
They advertise a super low price
but i haven't figured out exactly how
you would get that...
the super low price, but you can
definitely get a complete pair for less
than $50,
so especially if you're an occasional
wearer of your glasses that can be a
really good option. Now, when you're
looking at buying eyeglasses... service, of
course, is one of the most important
things that you're going to look at.
I've shopped at a couple different
Walmart Vision Centers and I've
definitely found this service
is very variable... Some places have some
excellent awesome opticians that have
been there for
over 10 years and really know their
stuff. Other Walmart Vision Centers...
not so much. They have employees that are
maybe not the friendliest and not the
best
at the service, so I have definitely
found it's variable. If you're not
happy with the service at one Walmart,
you can always go to another one because
there's probably plenty in your town to
go to.
And I did do that when I was shopping
before and after I found one Walmart
optician that I loved. I specifically
went back to her
again because I knew she would give us
good service. The next question I had,
especially with a young kid, was what is
the returns policy?
At Walmart, you can return the glasses
for up to 60 days if there's any problem
with the frames or the lenses, even if
you just don't like them.
They're completely returnable for 60
days. After that period they do have a
one year
breakage warranty. This is one of the
best there is around.
If your glasses get broken or deeply
scratched,
for any reason they will replace them
for a year.
That's incredible, especially for kids.
I mean
aren't we all worried about that they're
gonna break them on the playground, or
step on them, or sit on them or something
like that?
And in my son's first year of wearing
glasses, he did actually use the Walmart
warranty
two times. Once for the lenses and once
for the frames.
So we without a doubt got our money's
worth on that. If breakage is your
concern,
I do think Walmart is your best option
around. Overall,
we were pleased with our experience at
Walmart Vision Center. I do think
you can trust them with your eyeglasses.
Now, are they the best choice for
everybody? I think for kids, especially
ones prone to breakage, Walmart is the
best choice out there.
But you can find comparable prices at
places like Costco
and Warby Parker. I feel like Costco, you
get a little bit higher value
and you can check out my review of
Costco Optical. And I feel like Warby
Parker offers a little bit more
style for the price and a little bit
more options of different sizes
and they can actually be less expensive
than Walmart, so check out my review
on Warby Parker as well. But overall I
don't think you can go wrong going with
Walmart Vision Center.
If you like this video, please click like
and subscribe
and I'll see you in the next one!
