Frequently Asked Questions

General

1. What do I need before ordering from you?
2. How do I get a prescription?
3. Can you read my prescription off my existing glasses?
4. How can you charge such low prices?
5. Can I download an order form?
6. Do you sell designer glasses?
7. Can I try frames before buying?
8. Can I just order frames, and lenses with no prescription in them?
9. I made a mistake when ordering. What should I do?
10. What if my frames need adjustment after I receive them?
11. Can I exchange my glasses for a higher-priced pair?
12. Can I use my contact lenses prescription for ordering from with you

Lenses

6. What are your lenses made of?
7. Don't plastic lenses scratch?
8. Do you sell prescription sunglasses and other tinted lenses?
9. Do you sell lens coatings and tints?
10. Do you sell bifocal lenses?
11. What's the segment shape of bifocal lenses?
12. Do you sell varifocal/progressive lenses?
13. Can you re-glaze my existing frame?

Delivery

13. How long will my glasses take?
14. What about refunds for delivery?

Your prescription

14. Understanding a near, intermediate, distance, bifocal and varifocal prescription
15. What is my pupillary distance (PD), and how do I find out what it is?
16. I can't make out what's written on my prescription
17. How strong a prescription can you cater for?

Payment

19. What are the postage and packaging costs
20. How can I pay you?
21. Is the payment page secure?
22. What’s your guarantee and refund policy?
23. When does the 14-day period start?

All you need to shop with us is your prescription. Glasses Direct offer an extensive and comprehensive range of quality spectacles at discount prices.

Go to your local opticians and get an eye test. At the end of it, the optician must - by law - provide you with a copy of your prescription, and shouldn't insist or imply that you need to buy your glasses from that store. Take your prescription, come to us, and save money. And one more thing; we recommend you ask the optician to include your pupillary distance measurement in your prescription. Don’t know what that is? Read these FAQs on pupillary distance measurement.

We can indeed - providing they’re made to a prescription that‘'s still in date. Just send in your glasses with a completed mail order form. Once we've read them, we'll send them back to you - all for £10.

When you send your glasses, we need you to certify on the order form that:

- You’re in possession of a written prescription given by a registered medical practitioner or registered optometrist.

- If you’re 69 years old or younger - that your prescription is less than two years old. And if you’re 70 or over, that you got it within the last 12 months.

- That the spectacles you’re sending are made to that prescription.

Just tick the relevant boxes.

Because we cut out the middlemen, and don’t need to pay for expensive high street stores and eye testing equipment, we don’t need to pass on the cost to you. We save: you save.

Yes. Download the mail order form here to order your glasses by post.

Our expanding designer range of glasses and sunglasses includes Benson and Ashley, Storm, Roxy and Nicole Farhi. And at lower prices than you’d pay on the high street.

Absolutely. We understand the importance on getting glasses that are right for you. That’s why we’re very happy to offer our ‘Try at Home’ service here or on 08456 88 20 20. You can try up to four pairs for 14 days.

To cover the labour, postage, packaging and VAT costs, we charge a non-refundable £3.75 per trial pair. The trial frame(s) will be posted with a pre-paid return envelope. If not returned within 14 days, we’ll charge you the price listed on our website and in our catalogue.

You’re welcome to order just some frames. And/or optical plastic plain lenses (for people who don’t need glasses).

As soon as you can, call us or send an email letting us know, because we process orders faster than you can say “Vision is the art of seeing the invisible”. For this reason, please double-check your prescription and shipping information before submitting your order. Once you've placed your order you’re given the option of printing it off - we recommend you do this for future reference.

Most optical stores will do a minor adjustment for a small fee. If you still have problems after that, come back to us.

Absolutely. But we’ll charge you for the difference in cost. Your statutory rights aren’t affected by our guarantee and refund policy.

In a word - no.

Lenses

Standard optical plastic lenses are used in most of our glasses. We also offer thin, ultra thin and ultra ultra thin lenses. Thin will reduce the thickness by around 14%; ultra thin by 33%; and ultra ultra thin by as much as 39%. We use thin lenses in our rimless glasses to give them extra strength. We don’t offer glass lenses.

SPlastic lenses are softer than the traditional glass lenses but considerably lighter and safer. For added resilience, we offer a scratch-resistant coating.

Yes. We have a variety of colour tints. Our prescription sunglasses come with a dark tint (like any average pair of sunglasses, as standard. We recommend adding UV400 coating to these - it works to block potentially harmful ultraviolet rays. Another option is to get photosensitive sun-reactive lenses which are clear in normal lighting conditions, and turn almost as dark as sunglasses in strong sunlight. They also have a 100% UV filter. You’ll see all these options on the order form.

We offer a number of lens coatings and tints, at £10 each:

• Sunglasses tint. “Great for holidays”
• Anti-reflective coating. “Excellent for driving and using the computer”
• UV400 protective coating. “Sunscreen for the eyes”
• Scratch-resistant coating. “Helps avoid knocks and bumps”

We do. For an additional £35, or £70 on safety eyewear, you can buy bifocal glasses from us. We only suggest bifocals to people who’ve been recommended them by their optician. You’ll need to have them fitted, of course. You’ll need to have them fitted, of course. Once you’ve got your glasses, you can have an appointment with one of our trained optical assistants or dispensing opticians. They’ll adjust the frames, if needed, and won’t leave until you have a perfect-fitting set of spectacles.

We don’t yet provide this service in Northern Ireland.

As standard, we use D28 bifocal lenses. These are 28mm wide D-shaped segments positioned vertically 3mm below the centre of the lens, and centred on your pupillary distance. If you'd like set further up or down (higher or lower), then tell us when ordering.

We can also make up slightly wider 35mm bifocal lenses, as well as executive bifocals that stretch across the entire width of the lens. We'll contact you after youplace your order to discuss which option is best for you.

Due to the complexity of varifocal lenses, they can only be sold to people we've personally measured. Glasses Direct has joined forces with a team of qualified opticians who'll come to your home or work to take these measurements. How does this happen? Just place your order in the normal way, and within a few days one of our team will call you. Your new varifocal will be delivered within 28 days of our optician's visit.

Regrettably, varifocals are not yet available to Northern Ireland.

We can re-glaze frames, starting at £25. Please call 08456 88 20 20 to find out more.

Delivery

Your order will be processed on the day you make it. Glasses are sent for next day delivery through SecureMailServices. Our terms state that delivery can take up to 28 days. But it’s usually within 14, subject to the complexity of the prescription and coatings.

We don’t do them, we’re afraid.

Your prescription

If you need glasses for driving and/or watching TV, choose the ‘distance’ line.

-Buying a pair for using a computer, reading music, or watching TV? Choose ‘intermediate.'

- For glasses needed for reading or close-up work of any kind, choose the ‘near’ line.

Whether you understand your prescription or not, please enter all the numbers for all the categories - they’re what we use to determine which lenses you need

If you still need advice about which line is the best for you, call us any day of the week and we’ll help.

It's the distance between your pupils.

For a pair of glasses to perform as well as they can for you, the lenses need to be made to match the distance between your eyes, so that the centre of each lens aligns with the centre of your pupils. To achieve this, we need your pupillary distance measurement, also called PD measurement.

Unfortunately, many prescriptions given by high-street opticians don’t include it.

So, what can you do about it? We suggest you directly ask your optician for your pupillary distance measurement when he or she is doing your eye test. If you'd rather not, then we can make your glasses using an average PD measurement based on a survey of 4,000 people. This works very well for most customers; they don't harm the eyes but they can cause discomfort or strain. People with strong prescriptions and whose pupillary distance diverges significantly from the average may experience problems with spectacles made using an average PD measurement.

If you decide to order a pair of average PD measurement glasses and find yourself getting along with them less than perfectly, do tell us, and we'll arrange either for your pupillary distance to be measured and then replace your glasses, or give you a full refund.

No problem. Just post it to us with your order (click here to download a mail order form) or fax it to 0845 01 318 18, and we’ll do our best understand it. If we can’t, we’re likely to ask you to go back to your optician and get them to explain it. It’s worth knowing that all opticians are legally bound to give you a clear, legible copy of your prescription to take home.

The maximum prescription we can sell is: ±8.00 SPH (sphere) and ±4.00 CYL (cylinder).

Payment

£3.75 per frame ordered. Buy one or more pairs, you delivery’s free! We dispatch everything for next day delivery through SecureMailServices, well-known throughout the UK for reliable and efficient door-to-door delivery of medium to high value goods. Don’t expect a big branded van - their delivery drivers tend to be just people in their cars (to put potential thieves off the scent).

We accept all major credit and debit cards, PayPal, personal cheques, postal orders, and NHS and Accor vouchers.

Definitely. For those of you who understand these things - our payment system uses HSBC's online credit card payment service, secured with 128bit SSL - the best web security protocol. Our SSL-enabled web server has 128-bit encryption from Newnet®. Right-click on the payment page, go to ‘Properties’ and look at the web address - you’ll see it’s an https:// page over a secure server.

We offer a 14-day (28 for varifocials), unconditional money-back guarantee. If you feel your new glasses aren't right for you, we'll give you a refund or exchange them for another pair of the same value - no questions asked. Just pop them in the post and we'll see to the rest.

We’ll date-stamp your invoice when we put it in the post. That’s the date on which the 14-day money-back period starts.