Price comparison website. Are there any irish ones ?

gqma0

Hi.

I think this is the best section to ask the question

Are there any Irish Price comparison websites ?

There are lots in the UK, France, Beligum, Germany but none in Ireland. I know it's a small country but it's in the interest of everyone (consumers and shops).

thanks
Cheers.

finfacts

Hi,

The new National Consumer Agency (NCA)will likely set up a comparison web service. In our submission to the Consumer Strategy Group we proposed that a comprehensive online comparison service would be one of the best ways to empower the consumer. The group indicated in the subsequent report that the NCA should have it in their remit.

To cover a wide basket of goods/services in a number of urban areas, a reasonable budget including promotion costs, would be required for such a service but it would be a worthwhile investment.


Michael Hennigan
www.finfacts.com

JTMan

Why do we need any offical body to create this ??? ...

It would be great if a version of USwitch.com was created for Ireland. Uswitch has been hugely successful in the UK. It is completly independent and profitable.

Anyone up for doing a version of USwitch-type site for Ireland ??? ...

rondjon

Such a site was mentioned on this board already, where someone was thinking about doing such a thing.

If I remember, the issue was that not enough online Irish companies (of offline), provided listings of up to date pricing in a standardised format that can be automatically extracted and sorted and presented online.

It would be absolutely useless to try to do this in any other kind of way.

Firstly, it would be out of date as soon as it was published. I have a major fear that the NCA are going to hire a horde of "shoppers" to go out checking prices all over the country which will be a total and complete waste of time.

Secondly, I don't reckon that Irish retailers (or e-tailers) are confident enough in the value pricing they may or may not provide, in order to make it available to a 3rd party for people to compare prices.

The lack of clarity in pricing is one of the reasons Irish retailers are getting away with ripoff prices - people just don't know the alternatives.

Why would such retailers shoot the goose laying the golden eggs by providing consumers with clarity in pricing and further help them shop around for better value.

In my opinion, not going to happen.

gqma0

I can understand the lack of online shopping but there are lots of businesses that have email access, even though they don't have a website or publish their prices.

I feel that they don't want to publish their prices so that ppl have to ring or check by themselves and get fed up shopping around and stop after comparing 3 shops.

Let's say that you create your own website and advertise a company to send you a price list in order to maximise their profit. This would be profitable for both the company and the consumer.

It doesn't leave consumers much choice when you want to shop around for anything.

rondjon

gqma0 wrote:

Let's say that you create your own website and advertise a company to send you a price list in order to maximise their profit. This would be profitable for both the company and the consumer.

This statement contradicts your first 2 original statements. Businesses won't give you prices lists, because keeping consumers in the dark about differences in pricing is the best way to maximise profit.

And again, asking someone to manually send in prices, even by e-mail, is a nuts way to go about setting up such a website.

Firstly they won't do it. And secondly, the manual intervention wouldn't make it worth while.

gqma0

So, what do we do as consumers if we don't have the choice ?

1- Wait for the NCA to publish their prices, lay back and say "Ah well, That's rip off culture. I accept it !"

2- open a shop and rip off ppl

3- Be proactive and try to gather and share the prices. If everyone would bother doing that in their area, we could build a community. Are you ready to do that ? I am.

Gaetan