1-800 CONTACTS was founded in 1995 by two entrepreneurs who sought to address contact lens wearers' basic frustrations. Wearing contacts themselves, they understood that contact lenses could be expensive and inconvenient to replace. With that in mind, they set out to offer low prices, convenient ordering and fast delivery to their customers. Their plan to accomplish this centered on buying contact lenses in large quantities to get the best prices and housing a large contact lens inventory so customers' prescriptions would be in stock and ready to ship. Superior customer service and easy ordering were also key to their plan, two benefits that distinguished them from the competition.