Buying sunglasses online used to feel faintly reckless. You couldn’t try them on, couldn’t check how they sat on your nose, couldn’t be sure the lenses wouldn’t turn the world an odd shade of green. These days, it’s ordinary. We order trainers, coats, even mattresses without touching them first, and eyewear has quietly followed.

Still, the same few missteps keep showing up. They’re rarely catastrophic; more often, they’re small assumptions that end in that familiar moment of disappointment when the parcel arrives. This isn’t a checklist. It’s simply where people tend to come unstuck.

Treating sunglasses like a fashion impulse
It’s easy to shop for sunglasses the way you might shop for a scarf: quick, slightly whimsical, done in the space between other tabs. The trouble is they sit on your face and change the way the day looks. A frame that seems crisp in a product shot can feel a bit theatrical in real life, especially if it swamps your features.

Online shopping also makes it tempting to decide in seconds. Looking again at more than one image, at the actual dimensions, often prevents the “oh” when you finally put them on.

Skipping the numbers because they feel fussy
Bridge width, lens size, temple length. The sort of detail people scroll past. But they matter, and not in an abstract way. If you already own a pair of sunglasses or glasses that fit properly, those measurements are a useful anchor.

When people buy glasses online for the first time, they sometimes assume “one size” will be broadly fine. Sometimes it is. Often it isn’t. A few millimetres either way can mean frames that sit quietly all day or frames you keep pushing back up your nose.

Assuming darker lenses mean better protection
A common misunderstanding is that a very dark lens automatically offers better protection. Lens tint and UV protection aren’t the same thing. Dark lenses without proper UV filtering can be worse than no sunglasses at all, because your pupils dilate while harmful rays still get through.

Most product pages state UV protection clearly enough. The problem is that it’s easy to focus on colour and shape and miss the one line that actually matters.

Forgetting that photos flatten everything
Product images are made to be flattering. Frames are shot straight-on, perfectly level, often on faces that make most things look balanced. What you don’t see is how thick the frame looks in profile, or how it sits from the side.

If there are angled shots, or customer photos, they tend to tell the truth more quickly than the studio pictures. Without them, people often end up surprised by how chunky, or how insubstantial, a frame feels.

Leaving comfort until last
Comfort isn’t glamorous, so it gets pushed aside. Then you spend a day with pressure on the bridge of your nose, or arms that pinch, or frames that slide every time you tilt your head. These things are hard to judge from a single image, which is precisely why they catch people out.

Materials and weight can offer clues, if you pay attention. Sometimes there’s enough information; sometimes there isn’t.

Treating returns like a personal failure
There’s a quiet expectation, when shopping online, that you should get it right first time. If you don’t, the return can feel like a nuisance, or like you misjudged something obvious. With eyewear, it’s often just part of the process.

Taking that pressure off makes it easier to be honest. If they’re not quite right, they’re not quite right.

A better way to shop
The best experiences tend to come from slowing down and noticing what you’d ignore if you were scrolling. The numbers. The angles. The way a frame seems to occupy the face, rather than simply sit on it. Some independent eyewear brands, including Mojo Glasses, present frames with that sort of plain clarity, which helps.

Buying sunglasses online isn’t inherently risky. Most disappointment comes from rushing, from assuming, or from treating eyewear as simpler than it is. A little patience usually does more than another hour of scrolling.