LensPriceCompare Blog

Online contact lens retailers tend to publish “as-low-as” teaser pricing on price comparison engines without mention of rebate and volume discount qualifiers. To address this shortcoming, Lenspricecompare.com was developed as a price comparison engine to display base prices, shipping costs, and special offers. The proprietary software auto-chooses coupons and rebates according to the desired quantity of lenses.

Fort Collins, Colorado (PRWEB) March 17, 2008 — Lenspricecompare.com has completed three months’ beta testing on its proprietary price comparison software, designed to auto-pick coupons and rebates for contact lens users. Pushing beyond traditional price comparison sites, Lenspricecompare.com is proud to announce a new way for contact lens shoppers to compare prices.

Larger and unfocused price comparison sites tend to offer lowest-possible prices supplied by retailers. The problem with lowest-possible prices, or “as-low-as” prices, is that consumers cannot always take advantage of them. Consumers must first qualify for discounts before buying, and need to buy minimum quantities or be first time customers. There is a high potential for dissatisfied consumers to leave the store. Online retailers really need to examine the “as-low-as” pricing practices and ask themselves if offering teaser prices increases or decreases credibility and sales.

Online retailers have several considerations to address, one of these being the competition. If retailer X decides to publish the absolute lowest cost and makes no reference to rebates, coupons, and volume discounts, then retailer Y feels compelled to offer the same. This age-old game is the basis for the argument of never building a business on price alone, because, no matter what, someone will always claim to have a better price!

Patrick O’Donovan, owner and developer of Lenspricecompare.com, explains that teaser price comparisons are unnecessary, because Lenspricecompare.com was designed for consumers not retailers.

“The site was designed for analytical shoppers who care about details,” he says. “Details like base price before volume discounts and special offers, details like shipping and handling costs, and details like total costs. We’ve built a site we would want to use ourselves.”

Lenspricecompare.com evaluates each cost according to the number of lens boxes the consumers wants, then matches up coupons and rebates available in its database to calculate and deliver the lowest cost to the consumer.

O’Donovan says he is putting a strong stamp of approval on the site and its proprietary software. “It works as advertised, and after thousands of visitors, this package allows lens shoppers to see significant savings with every contact lens purchase.”

The site gives contact lens buyers an opportunity to compare prices from a select group of established online retailers. When a visitor enters the quantity of lenses, the software calculates lowest overall cost including shipping and handling, and matching coupons and rebates, and then displays the list by total cost.

About Lenspricecompare.com
Developed by Toplevel Technologies LLC, Lenspricecompare.com is a Website specializing in name brand contact lens price comparisons.

Contact:
Patrick O’Donovan
Toplevel Technologies LLC.
(970) 498-0743

Coupon Summaries

Here we list details about coupons. The minimum quantity or purchase price and the overall discount value of the coupon. This is where you find out about coupon restrictions, exclusive coupons and rebates, and the main points about coupons. By the way there’s no retailers we know of that allow more than one coupon per purchase.

Coupon Codes

The most current coupon code is displayed here and automatically gets removed once expired. This is checked daily so, unless a data entry or retailer error is made, coupons are always fresh. Contact lens coupons are placed here for shopper convenience, and of course cost savings.

Coupon Savings Amount

Totals up how much you should expect to save by using this coupon. Sometimes it’s easy enough to figure out the savings but it’s not always crystal clear. If the savings amount happens to be a percentage, we calculate how much the savings are, and then subtract the amount from the total price. We also specify when you can use free shipping with the coupon and how much you will save.

Contact Lens Rebates Summaries

Generally, rebate rules have more restrictions than coupons. A recent prescription, usually within the past 90 days, is required along with a minimum prurchase. The minimum purchase is listed along with savings amounts. Rebates are sometimes a product of the manufacturer partnered with a retailer, so they are not always the same. Each retailer has a link from the product page to the rebate page when applicable. Get the full terms and conditions of the rebate there.

On the contact lens product pages, simply choose the number of boxes you need and the on-page software will auto-pick the coupons and rebates it thinks will save you the most money. At Lenspricecompare.com, we also have a feature for you to manually choose and then calculate coupons and rebates.

Volume Discounts

Did you really know how to get the most for your money when buying contact lenses online? It’s not for every body, but if you spend over $100 on contacts, you need to read this. Retailers structure their prices and offers around quantity and price breaks. If you hit the magic number of boxes, you can save with a rebate, a coupon, and on top of all that, a volume discount for buying more contacts. That’s three simultaneous but different ways to save right there.

Finding Coupons

Coupons save people who buy large quantities of lenses lots of money. A good rule of thumb is coupons save 10% off the price. So for every $150 spent on contact lenses, the shopper saves $15. Combine this with free shipping and over $20 savings before ever comparing prices.

Finding Rebates

Acuvue and Ciba Vision or Focus are known to use coupons for online marketing. Rebate practices are a little different in the online contact lens world. Standard rebates are available from Acuvue, but Ciba, Freshlook and Focus provide unique rebates to online retailers.

Finding Value

The best value contact lenses are found by calculating total cost, including shipping, handling, and discounts and dividing it by the number of boxes. This gives you the price per box and naturally the lowest price per box will equate to the best value. Typically, you need to buy more boxes to get the best value, but that’s not always the case. It really depends on current coupons, retailer discounts, and rebates combined, and the number of boxes you buy.

Check The Better Business Bureau

When unsure, and it’s the first time buying lenses on line, or anything for that matter, take a look at the Better Business Bureau online. Check the store you are buying from to make sure there were not excessive complaints, and that you are satisfied with the record. Stores with the BBB logo are likely to be more trustworthy than those without.

Finding Free Shipping

First of all, don’t procrastinate with ordering. If you leave it too late, you’ll end up expediting and they’ll charge you even more. On the other hand, there’s often a coupon or free shipping price break. So check shipping breaks first, and try to buy over the price break threshold.

Purchase Lenses On The Internet!

It is usually a great idea to shop around for the best deals.

Compare Contact Lens Prices

Lenspricecompare does a lot more than simply compare contact lens prices! It factors in shipping, handling, coupons, and rebates, and then orders the list from lowest cost to highest cost to simplify shopper purchasing decisions.

It also factors in volume price breaks from retailers to provide the most accurate pricing possible. Sometimes retailers change a price or two without letting us know, but usually they are right on the money.

The lowest price changes significantly and retailers bounce up and down on the list according to the number of boxes chosen. So, this is a very dynamic price comparison and quickly saves you money.

Choose Number of Boxes

As mentioned above, there’s more to price comparison than multiplying the price by the number of boxes. When you choose your number of boxes, several costs and offers are calculated for you. Some rebates, specifically Acuvue rebates, require 24 boxes so the box count goes all the way from one to 24.

Lowest Average Price

Lists the lowest average price with costs and discounts factored in. This number displays the true value of your purchase. When you understand where this price comes from, there’s very little more you need to know before purchasing contact lenses online.

Pick Your Own Offers

At first we were not sure about adding this feature, but people use it, and so for now it stays. When you choose this option all coupons and rebates are set to zero, so you see the base price with totals. On choosing this option, all coupons and rebates are displayed on the lower half of the page, allowing you to see at a glance the offers available. This feature is most useful when you want to buy from a particular store, and would like to calculate the most appropriate offers for that store.

Shipping

The price comparison defaults to standard shipping, but you can choose expedited shipping too, and display the average cost in order of best price with expedited shipping factored in. Overnight shipping tends to change quite a bit and it is excluded for the time being. By clicking on “Select Shipping”, shipping costs are set to zero.

Handling

It is downright difficult to find handling charges until the checkout in many contact lens stores. That’s why we include it, spell it out, and display it right there on the page for you. A few stores don’t charge any handling. When all is said and done, the final cost is displayed for you so while some stores display a cheap base price, they make it back in handling. It’s a bit of a game really, but once you understand the numbers, it’s not so difficult to play!

Lowest Cost Per Box

On the optional menu you can choose a feature called “Auto Select Best Price Per Box” and it calculates the best deal based on all the coupons and rebates and everything! This is a really cool feature and we even had the software people add the number of calculations made to arrive at an answer!