Shopping in Beijing
 

While shopping is not the reason we are going to Beijing, it would be nice to find prescription eyeglasses as we did on a trip that included Shanghai. Cost was $50 a pair in a nice shop recommended by a professional shopper there. Most of our Beijing time will be spent seeing historic, but we would appreciate any suggestions for a bit of shopping.

Multiple street-level and multi-storey outlets on the East Third Ring Road around the junction with Pan Jia Yuan Lu. Metro Pan Jia Yuan, exit A on the west side of the ring road, and opposite on the east side.

朝阳区东三环南路潘家园名警苑眼镜城 Cháoyángqū Dōng Sānhuán Nán Lù Pānjiāyuán Míng Jǐng Yuàn Yǎnjìng Chéng JinSong +86 10 8773 0848

朝阳区东三环南八里庄64号(潘家园桥北路东) this is the one on the west side of the third ring, northwest corner of the Pan Jia Yuan Qiao junction.

Some research needed before travel if a sensible purchase is to be made--lenses come in many different varieties and qualities, for instance, produced with different techniques; and the presence of labelling making claims about brand or quality merely demonstrates an ability to fake labels, and nothing else. Despite the six-to-eight times mark-up inherent to frame sales in the West, it still takes a canny shopper to get away with a bargain.

Prescription eyeglasses are one of the good buys in China. I have bought many over the years. The poster above is conservative about the markup in the West. Eyeglasses are essentially a scam. This is an entertaining video about it, as it says, why does a simple piece of plastic cost the same as a sophisticated piece of electronic like a mobile phone?
Panjiayuan eyeglass market suggested above is huge with a wide selection. Understand that you need to bargain hard and very little English is spoken there. I have been dealing with a shop near the Pearl Market for several years. No bargaining and they speak excellent English. You need to send me a message for dettails.

Why? Why shouldn't other posters benefit from the knowledge?

Because the place is hard to find and it is better to call them when you are near and they send someone to get you. I don't want to share personal information on a forum (name, phone number and email). Might even be against the guidelines of the forum.

Other posters can also get the information by just messaging me.

The phone number of a business is hardly personal information.

It's her mobile number. In any case, I don't need someone to tell me what I should post.
If you have other suggestions just go ahead and give them rather than wasting bandwidth criticizing others.

That's a new one: Wasting band width. IMO, 94.7% of the WWW is WASTED.

But off-topic as i bought my eyeglasses years ago in Baoding.

How long will it take to get the glasses? We have 6 days.

Thank you.

One hour.

Awesome!

IME, one hour is for a single-vision lens. If you have a more complicated prescription, (bifocals, trifocals, verilux) it will take longer.

I wonder how long? I use bifocals and got them in about 5 hrs in Bangkok.
We are also going to KL for a week and as I have a friend there he probably knows good places to go