Cost of Customer Acquisition

I’ve been in need of a new pair of glasses for some time, particularly for when running or other sweaty fitness activities. My old Japanese frames, though seemingly still of the same look of many glasses you can buy today, look scruffy as hell.

Eye glass frames, along with razor blades and printer cartridges, are essentially all profit, with frames being especially “scammy” as most are manufactured by a single company. Seeing as we have a family of 4 to feed I wasn’t too excited to not only have to pay to get a subscription, eye tests are not part of our universal healthcare, and pay the $400 and up, I was quoted for new glasses.

So when presented with an ad on Instagram from Kits.ca I decided to give it a try.

I measured my previous glasses, used their tool to measure my PD, gave them my prescription, and submitted an order for the pair of glasses that looked as close as possible to my previous pair.

Total cost was ~$12 for shipping, plus the time I spent entering the data. They arrived in my mailbox a week after purchase.

Kits gives you your first pair of glasses for free because they believe that you will be so impressed with the product and service that you will be back to buy another pair. I’m not so sure. The quality of the frames is on par with anything else I’ve owned and they fit right out of the box. For running and other bouncy activities they will require some slight adjustment but otherwise they are fine.

The only problem is that I don’t really like them. Online try-on can’t really compare to the experience of what you get in store, and I’m fairly certain I would never have purchased them if I had tried them on in store. The software they use is somewhat akin to a Snapchat filter. They do offer a 30 day return policy with return shipping at their expense.

It’s a great deal and an interesting business model, but I’m not convinced its for me just yet.