subject: Why are inexpensive eyeglasses so cheap? [print this page] Why are inexpensive eyeglasses so cheap? Why are inexpensive eyeglasses so cheap?
It is a law in the world that things are previous when they come into being first and become cheaper on and on as time goes by. The same is in eyeglasses industry. Almost a thousand years ago, eye wear are luxury accessories only for those noble and rich men. And now, they can be afforded by almost all people, some of whom may have rough economy. Especially, as the multiplication of industrialization advances greatly, the cost and price for eye wear have declined in plumb line. Therefore, cheap eyeglasses are some of the commonest products in the field. Usually, cheap glasses are also called inexpensive eyeglasses in people's daily lives.
Inexpensive glasses, as their name has it, are sold at very low price, as low as low income people can afford. Therefore, they are much cheaper than those expensive eyeglasses. In fact, the reason why these eye wear are so cheap not only lies in the advancement of industrialization, though it is the major factor. It is also a result of competition.
Competition is one of the most evident reasons leading to the decline of prices in eye wear. For a very long time all eye wear are sold highly with great added value, mainly because only few manufactures run this business and they have monopolized the market. Other merchants do not know the real profits in the field; or even though they know the profits, they can not find a better way to compete with these existing powerful manufacturers. However, as more and more people are in need of glasses and the industry becomes such a big one that some other merchants begin to step in by various ways, like acquiring some small retailers, launching new stores and employing specialists in other companies, etc. This result is more and more merchants join in the game and the competition become more intensified than ever before. However, the manufacturers and vendors mushroomed within such a short time, but the market and consumers have never grown at such rapid speed. Therefore, all shops have to compete with one and another by undercutting the price, so as to attract more consumers. As the marginal profits in the field becomes narrower and narrower, the price become lower on and on in the mean time. And buying inexpensive eyeglasses becomes possible and practical.
Moreover, the competition become much fiercer as the application of internet and online exchange matures. Selling online is firstly used by some small vendors who can not compete with those powerful traditional retailers. However, some of them become of giants in the field as time goes by. And more and more people tend to buy online other than from real optical stores, due to the great glamour of internet eyeglasses. This has affected these traditional retailers who subsequently launched some online stores, so as to meet the diversified challenges in the field. And now the situation in glasses industry is very complex- there are some traditional stores, online stores, or both the two. Anyway, the increasing competition in the field has made vendors undersell their products on and on and those inexpensive eyeglasses are much cheaper in the mean time.
