Lenses are much cheaper to manufacture than most people realize. Most of the coatings and upgrades are 95%+ profit with very little cost.

An interesting thing I learned in that industry, the uncut "puck" of plastic/material is usually cut to your prescription via an CNC style machine. The cut instructions are essentially a pre-built CAD file based on your prescription/measurements. A significant cost of the process is paying "click fees" which are essentially IP to use that CAD file or a usages based tier on the CNC machine (however you want to look at it). I think, for the company I was working with at least, it was tied to the CAD file though. I recall some discussion of us changing vendors as current vendor's CAD files were failing QC checks at an unacceptable level. If I remember correctly, it was about $5 of a $20 finished good (averages for a pair of lenses). Every coating imaginable would only add $3 at most to cost of goods.

Memories from ~3 years ago.

IP/Brands drives a lot in this industry and is how Zenni is able to cut costs. A company like Rayban will partner with a lense manufacturer to put a logo on the lense and then charge $300 for the lenses. It's the exact lense the manufacturer would normally sell for $25 but now it has a Rayban logo on it. (I actually had these and ended up scratching off the Rayban logo because it was constantly visible in my periphery).

That sounds about right. I remember having gone to an optometrists office some time back and they were able to cut lenses right there and have glasses ready in an hour. I was amazed and couldn't understand why everyone couldn't do this.

Sunglasses are the worst. They cost basically nothing to make but the profit margin is Inf% b/c of branding. A $20 (at most) pair of non-name sunglasses instantly becomes a $700 pair of glasses once you slap a few PRADA insignias around it.

I used to get my sunglasses from Goodr; they charged $25 for no-slip polarized sunglasses, which were very good. After one of the pairs broke, I decided to get two pairs of Ray-Ban Wayfarers, one for $75, and the other for $200. I knew I was getting fleeced, but I finally wanted a pair of "cool" shades and could finally get them without breaking the bank. :D

The locally made lenses still exists but it's becoming very rare. When I was a kid my parents went to a one-hour place, that made them on the spot. It's still possible but not economical. Not that they passed the savings to the consumer of course. Gotta love economies of scale.

If forgot to mention sales commissions as I was talking about cost of goods. But a variable compensation for the sales person, is a lot of your cost if you are in a retail setting. Believe it or not, your optometrists gets paid commission too (if an employee) as does the person at the desk. It's a sales heavy business. Buy eyedrops, buy lens cleaner, buy here - we really don't want you to walk out the door with your prescription! We have a metric called "capture rate" that our commission is attached to!!

It's not too bad but was a surprise to learn it's much more retail than medical (as a business). I think in most the world it's not even necessary to see a doctor to get glasses, like in the US. I usually leave and buy somewhere else because my doctor just has a crappy selection of frames, every single time, he gives me the prescription when I ask. Then I have to ask for the pupillary distance and he acts like he doesn't know what that is. "Why do you need that?" Because if I buy online they'll ask, "Oh yeah, I can take that measurement".

That makes a ton of sense and explains why opticians are paid so low (relative to other medical fields).