After you have worn your glasses for a few years, people usually start subtly letting you know that your glasses are out of date.

When you finally decide to enter your optician’s office, he is glad to see you: By selling you the best eye glasses available on the market, he makes a lot of money -- whereas you probably pay too much.

According to a Los Angeles Times article, most people don’t know they could be getting a better price because they spend too little time searching online for eyeglasses.

But it is becoming more and more popular as innumerable online retailers offer quality and even designer glasses for low prices. They contract with frame and lens manufacturers overseas and can cut off costs for rent, labor and designer licensing fees.

One online expert said that he can get single-vision lenses for $27, compared to an average of $400 for buying the same glasses in normal stores.

But buying eyeglasses online poses more challenges than having a book or DVD shipped to you.

Sites such as AllAboutVision.com provide the important information needed to find eyeglasses that work for you.

Also, GlassyEyes.com gathers information about buying glasses online. Founder Ira Mitchell, a 38-year-old software engineer, includes his own experiences and those of his readers.

Mitchell, who started the site to proclaim his satisfaction after buying his first eyeglasses online, became an expert in the business. His site serves thousands of people.

“I've ordered more than 20 pairs in the nearly two years that I've been working on the site, and only had one order that was unsatisfactory, so I'm at a roughly 95 percent success rate," Mitchell said in an e-mail interview.

What Do You Need?

Mitchell recommends some steps you should follow when they want to buy eyeglasses online.

First, you need the prescription from your doctor or optician. Since your pupillary distance -- also known as the PD, the space between the centers of your eyes -- is not part of the prescription by default, you might need to measure it yourself or ask your eye doctor or optician to take the measurement:

The latter might not like to help you, because he knows that you want to by your glasses online instead of buying them from him. However, as Mitchell knows from experience, the measurement is not that difficult at all: He provides a step-by-step explanation how to do it on his Web site.

Because the size of everybody’s head and eyes is different, next, you need to figure out your frame measurements. This can be done either by just looking up the measurements stamped on the arms of your old frames or on some in a store. You can also measure them yourself, following directions found online.

Stalk Your Frames

The next step is to start off with searching frames in the jungle of different online stores, which demands a lot of patience. You can have a trusted friend help you find styles that will work for you.

Once you have found a frame, the last thing to do is, to choose the lenses’ options, depending both on the information in your prescription and size of the frame. After choosing coatings or tints, you can finally place your order.

Before you submit the order, however, you should check out the store's return policy.

Mitchell doesn’t know about much bad experiences.

“Most reactions are overwhelmingly positive. I get e-mails every day from people who are thrilled to be free of the idea of $400 eyeglasses,” he says. If people tell him about bad experiences, Mitchell tries to support them.

“I've been able to hop in and help many of these people get things straightened out,” he says.

Online Right Thing To Do?

Many opticians oppose buying eyeglasses online. It competes with their business and they fear that people will wear unhealthy eyeglasses.

Harold L. Friedman, an associate clinical professor at the State University of New York and optometrist for 48 years, said in the New York Times that he sees eyeglasses like other medical products, which people usually don’t buy online.

Physicist Larry searched new bifocal glasses, whose prices in different stores ranged from $300 to more than $500; He bought them online for only $136. Others said on Mitchell's site that they buy more pairs than they really need because buying them online is so cheap.