A new price comparison website officially launched in Liverpool yesterday, boasting what it claims is a unique proposition in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace. The site, built by Mando, also boasts £300,000 in funding support from the NWDA and Businesslink Northwest and in a first for this type of site, has the backing of a national charity association.
PriceByPrice aims to carve out a niche in a marketplace that is dominated by names such as Moneysupermarket, Go Compare, Confused.com and more recently Tesco, by being the most accessible site for the UK’s millions of disabled consumers.
It claims to achieve this by divesting itself of technology that can hamper screen reader software (such as flash and pop ups), while providing user-friendly options for increasing screen contrast, text size and colours.
It is also accessible using a keyboard, rather than a mouse, and conforms to the industry’s highest accessibility benchmark – the W3C Triple A standard.
Web accessibility charity AbilityNet helped the team fulfil its objective of creating “a website that does not discriminate against disability but is accessible to everyone.”
The site was conceived by Dave Warner and his partner in their SEO agency (Visual Position) in Liverpool when they initially felt that the early discounts of 10% to people completing online quotes were discriminatory - and the idea grew from there as they discovered the issue (and opportunity) was bigger than they'd realised.
With 10 million people disabled in the UK and the major price comparison sites not catering for them, the upside - assuming the comparison technology is the equal of the majors - could be enormous. And by offering to pay £2.50 towards a charitable trust for each completed online application, they have another strong differentiating factor up their sleeves.
The concept is clearly one that impressed business support organisation BusinessLink, which, together with the NWDA, have pumped in some £300,000 to the project over the space of the last two years.
Representatives of both organisations, along with How-Do, were present at the launch of the site yesterday at Liverpool’s Tate Gallery.
Brookside creator Phil Redmond did the honours in his guise as chairman of the International Centre for Digital Content.
The site, which focuses on comparisons for credit cards, insurance, loans and mobile phones (gas and electricity prices are ‘coming soon’),will initially focus solely on the UK. Other funding to date has come from the partners and from B&B Development, a privately-owned Liverpool investment company.
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