So today, Snap begins selling its video-recording sunglasses Spectacles openly online for $129.99 in the U.S. at Spectacles.com.
– Snapchat found itself with a marketing sensation on its hands late last year when it began selling funky-looking sunglasses called Spectacles. The trick is they allow users to record quick videos and photos and send them directly to their Snapchat accounts, but the catch was they were available only through vending machines that would turn up in random locales or through a now-shuttered pop-up store in Manhattan, notes New York. Now, however, parent company Snap is selling them online at Spectacles.com for $129. Just how crazy did demand get? CNBC notes that the glasses were selling for up to $5,000 on secondary markets, adding that its own reporters stood in line for 18 hours to get them. (There's a limit of six per household for the new online purchases.) Snap has said the glasses haven't been big money-makers, but TechCrunch thinks the new move is designed to show prospective IPO investors that they could be. The vending machines will go on hiatus for awhile, but they're expected to resurface eventually.