2023, Business, Media, TV, Uncategorized

I Can See Clearly Now…

40 Comments

I know that I’ve probably mentioned how much I distrust ads.  But every now and then I am surprised  — in a nice way.

Reading glasses.  I’ve struggled for a couple of years with nighttime reading.  As soon as it gets a little dark, it was hard to read – print just a little too small for comfort.  In July, after finally figuring out all the ins and outs of Medicare (OK, SOME of the ins and outs of Medicare… I’m pretty sure that Medicare is set up so that nobody truly ever figures it out…and if they do, then it changes), I decided to get my eyes checked and to get glasses.  My old glasses were granny glasses and bifocals and completely useless.  Even with bigger lenses, I didn’t want bifocals again.  My eye doctor seemed to think it was a fine idea to get two pairs of glasses – one for reading and one for driving at night. 

I’ve seen too many Warby Parker ads on tv and wasn’t interested until a friend of mine highly recommended them.  I did like the price point but didn’t want to do the “five pairs in the mail” thing so I actually went to a Warby Parker store.  It was amazing.  Staff greeted me, I had someone assisting me within a minute.  They didn’t push me toward the expensive stuff (even on Medicare, I was on a budget), and weren’t trying to rush me out the door.  They measured using a phone app, did up the paperwork and I was walking out the door literally twenty minutes later.  The reading glasses showed up at my house five days later and the driving glasses a few days after that.  I had to take the driving glasses in for an adjustment; this was also handled very quickly and very pleasantly.  Honestly it took me longer to find a parking spot at the Galleria than it did to get this done. 

The reading glasses are amazing to me.  I suppose I could have just gotten cheap readers from the drugstore but I’m happy with my Warby Parker experience and love the new glasses! 

Recommendations, ads, influencers?  How do you choose new products?

40 thoughts on “I Can See Clearly Now…”

  1. Not being a participant on social media (other than the Trail), I am not influenced by influencers. I don’t so much distrust advertising as disregard it except for gaining an awareness of the existence of a product.

    Mostly I rely on experience, judgement, and recommendations. Those recommendations can be personal ones from friends or family or they can be formal ones in the form of product reviews, as one finds on Amazon, and those provided by reputable sources like Wirecutter from New York Times.

    I really don’t buy that many things I haven’t bought before.

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  2. I should add, since the only television we watch is streamed content, we don’t see many ads in that way. The ones we do see are peculiar. Half the time I can’t even tell what the product is.

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  3. Consumer Reports first for the buying guide and recommendations if CR covers the item. Screw the influencers and ads. I buy what I want/need based on what I want/need. I’ll study online reviews for certain products if there are enough reviews to have a consensus.

    One thing I don’t like about buying online is not being able to see and feel the item. Sure, the online site usually lists dimensions, weight, etc. and has one or more pictures of the product, but it’s easy that way to overlook the minute details such as how the thing is put together (nails, screws, glue?), it’s solidity: Metal? steel or aluminum? Plastic? Thin or thick? Fabric and seams? Flimsy or sturdy?

    Yet, I’ve saved hundreds of gallons of gas and hundreds of hours of time by shopping online. That more than compensates for being disappointed by a product more often when it’s purchased online.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. YA shops more online than I ever will but she is very committed to reading reviews. So if something gets panned and doesn’t have a good review, then she won’t buy it. I’m slowly, but surely learning this from her but it’s a slow process because like Bill, I don’t buy a whole lot of new stuff.

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Recently we purchased a used (it came as a formerly leased car) Hybrid Ford Escape. I LOVE this car. It is so much better than I expected. Had it been my decision I would have tried to locate an electric car, but Lou was not ready for that. So we compromised on a hybrid vehicle. Lou did his magic car-finding searches and produced this car for us.

    Most of the first run of hybrids were sluggish, slow to accelerate and very small. This one has enough juice to satisfy me, is a comfortable size, and has heated seats and steering wheel (on your recommendation, Ben). We purchased it in July as our old 2012 Ford Escape was disintegrating into the universe, then got flooded due to a leak in the sunroof. The 2012 had been very reliable, but its time had come. The new one displays your gas and electric usage and thrives on short trips and errands.

    Like your glasses VS, it has been a wonder. Thanks for the tip on an actual Warby Parker store. Like Chris and VS, I want to see and feel the product.

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  6. I went to a Warby Parker store once, many years ago. They weren’t mailing things and, as far as I know, they weren’t online. I think the store was in Minneapolis. I don’t like going to Mpls as much as I used to, so it was many years ago. I still have those glasses. I still like the frame and it held up well. The prescription is wrong now but I kept them for the frame.

    I’ve been choosing my frames in my eye clinic here in Northfield. My eyes are not good and they seem to change every year. They were getting so bad in the last few months that I was really having trouble. I had an appointment, my prescription had indeed changed, so I bought new glasses. With the frames, progressive lenses with Transitions, anti-glare for night driving, etc., they came to almost $1000. This is an annual expense for me. I really can’t see without them. The new pair is an improvement for sure. It took some time to get used to them. I felt like the floor was coming up at me. But now I feel like I can count the leaves on the trees and every blade of grass. I’m glad they have figured out how to make the lenses lighter out of polycarbonate material. If mine were glass, they would be the proverbial “coke bottles.”

    There’s a Warby Parker store in the Galleria? Didn’t know.

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  7. Freshman year of college we had a (required) course called Propaganda Analysis – one of the most important classes I ever had – anyone else take it? I don’t remember Joel ever having anything like it in high school, and wonder if it is still taught anywhere. It needs to be.

    I mostly get ads for something related to an internet search I’ve done, and it’s easy enough to just ignore them. I often use word of mouth recommendations to help me decide about buying something. I would love to run into a newer used Prius, as I’ve been very satisfied with our 2008 mode.

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    1. An English class at Moorhead State College (Now University!) had a Critical Thinking component. If I recall correctly, “propaganda” is NOT a dirty word.

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      1. I used to teach a unit on propaganda way back when before I drifted into AP. I used to teach that the word propaganda is propaganda. I taught about loaded words and stunted reasoning and emotions replacing reasoning when reasoning should be the basis. The kids would do ads for fictitious products and candidates that could not be modeled on real ads. That last part they found the hard part.

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        1. I find it both amusing and frustrating how words are misappropriated and the user clearly has no idea what it means. For example, “Marxists!” There is no way that XXXpresident Donny and most of his minions know political science. So I reply, “I am a Marxist! Groucho and his brothers are comedic geniuses.”

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    2. Having worked for years in advertising, I scarcely need a course in persuasive language. There are so many ways to promote a product without technically lying.

      For example “The best product of its kind ever made”, even without parsing what “of its kind” means, is not a substantive claim. It’s an opinion. And “best” is too vague and subjective to mean anything concrete.

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    3. No, but I took Intro to Mass Communications at the U of M sometime in the early ‘90s. There was quite a bit on how ads are made and how misleading they can be.

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  8. Per my sister’s recommendation, I used Warby Parker for several pairs of glasses over the past 8 years (bifocals X 2,
    bifocal sunglasses, single vision piano glasses) and was very satisfied with the products and the service. I would continue to use them but I no longer need glasses thanks to the multi vision intraocular lenses implanted a couple months ago during cataract surgery. Neither Medicare nor supplemental insurance paid for the lenses themselves but as far as I am concerned, they have been worth every penny. What a treat to read and see other things close up without the hassle of glasses. The one side effect is that at night headlights, streetlights, and stoplights have about 3 haloes around them.
    I rarely shopped online until the Covid lockdown. I like the convenience of online shopping for quite a few things (and as Chris said, saving on gas and time) but still frequent the grocery stores and Target.

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  10. My daughter orders glasses for whole family from a different online company cheaper than WP (oh, same initials which is ominous) and has for several years. Never had a dud or an issue.
    Clyde

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  12. Living where I do, I need to order more on-line than I care to. Just last week I got lingonberry preserves for Christmas baking, and Icelandic lamb horns for the dog. Orange and lemon peel for stollen arrived today, and Danish marzipan is to arrive tomorrow.

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    1. No matter where you lived you would have to order most of those things online. Only the most common denominator items are reliably stocked in stores.

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  13. A very very dark day for me and my family. For three reasons. And then not directly in our family but a terrible example of how humans are so cruel.
    But to polish the reputation of a much meligned profession, my health insurance agent is a wonderful man, so caring. But he has to fight the TV ads that are open lies about medicare insurance and support insurance.

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  14. I am an online shopper for select things (just ordered a new bath mat – a commodity – because I couldn’t find the color i wanted in the stores where I looked… apparently I am not “on trend” in my color choice). Some things I do like to see in person, some I am willing to buy based on crowd-sourced (or personal) recommendation. Have bought several pairs of glasses online – but I only need them for night or distance driving, so it’s okay that they aren’t high end. Bath mat – meh, it’s not likely to fall apart quickly. Daughter’s college laptop – purchased online because once I knew what we needed in the machine itself, then it’s a commodity and I can purchase based on reviews and reliability of the manufacturer. Groceries – have only done online shopping on a couple of occasions when there was good reason not to go into the store (like the time I needed coffee and milk and aa few other things, but was getting over COVID), but then I already know the brands I want and don’t get too far into the fresh produce beyond “bananas.” 🙂

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  15. save your perscription and send to zenni for online glasses at a very cheap price
    i didn’t like bifocals
    i like progressive lens but it’s more expensive
    on zenni cheap progressive is $60 expensive is $150 i tried both over the years
    cheap is fine but scratches easily
    i need all the help i can get
    i’m tough on stuff in general glasses in particular

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