Internet Contact Lens Pricing survey 2006

One year on from the Section 60 changes to the Opticians Act, the availability of contact lenses on the internet is now greater than ever.

Now in its third year, the Internet Contact Lens Pricing (ICLP) survey has again been broadened to include major new players in the UK such as Sainsbury’s and Asda.

Last year, the ICLP survey increased the number of websites from 12 to 15. This year, we increased that number to 20. Two extra lens products were included in the research: 1-Day Acuvue Moist and Acuvue Oasys.

From April 24 to May 21, Optician researchers logged on to 20 websites (Table 1) to record the prices of four daily disposable brands (Johnson & Johnson’s 1-Day Acuvue and 1-Day Acuvue Moist, CIBA Vision’s Focus Dailies and Bausch & Lomb’s SofLens One Day).

 The new websites for this year’s survey were chosen according to their prominence in the UK (Sainsbury’s, Asda and Tesco) and their prominence in Google UK search results (contactsdirect.co.uk, contactsuniverse.co.uk and thecontactlensshop.com).