Can Price Comparison websites be trusted?

In recent years a surge in price comparison websites has transformed the way we shop for products and services. These sites can help consumers navigate through complicated financial decisions, collate information and save hours of research searching the internet for the best prices. These sites are also highly useful for businesses to see exactly what their competitors are offering. Although research from Mintel indicates that consumer usage of these sites has dropped in the past year losing out to voucher code sites, as the boom times are not likely to come back any time soon they look set to maintain their appeal. With hundreds of price comparison sites out there, including everything from supermarket pricing, travel, insurance and entertainment related product and services, it is a highly competitive market.

Main concerns with Price Comparison sites

They are not always easy to use: They are supposed to make our lives easier but many consumers find them really confusing and don’t trust them to find the best deal. In a customer satisfaction survey on price comparison sites conducted by Which?, no single website scored any more than 50%. Webcredible has also identified some usability flaws these sites could improve on. In particular they highlighted that the results pages of many of the sites could be further clarified and greater control regarding the presentation of the results should be passed over to the user. Yet even so more than half the people surveyed had used a price comparison site in the last year, helping the largest sites pocket annual revenues of well over £170 million.

Consumers must pay attention to detail: Although online comparison shopping may allow consumers to compare deals quickly, this speed and convenience can sometimes result in poor attention to detail. For instance by opting for the cheapest insurance price, you need to be absolutely clear on what the deal covers. The cheapest price will not always reflect quality therefore consumers need to understand what they are actually getting for their money.

Pricing information might not always be up to date: A further concern raised by InvisibleHand is that the prices stated might not always be reliable as these sites depend upon the retailers to update their price data meaning that many can be up to a week out of date. Consumers can be lured in by what they think looks like a good deal but they are left disappointed after clicking through and discovering that the real price is completely different.

No site covers the entire market: Research firm Defaqto identifies that no site covers the entire market meaning that the cheapest quote listed may be more expensive than an another site’s cheapest quote. This casts doubts over whether consumers are actually comparing like with like, so people rightly worry about the sites not being comprehensive or competitive enough. In the Which? survey it was also revealed that one in four people chose not go on to buy through these sites because they had been able to find a cheaper quote themselves elsewhere.

What is in it for them?

It is important to be aware that most price comparison sites have commercial arrangements with the companies featuring on their site, thus questioning their overall credibility to an extent. Some sites have a commission fee payable when someone buys through the site and others receive a click through payment every time a consumer clicks from a price comparison site through to a company’s own website. In the survey conducted by Which? more than two thirds of the respondents revealed that they think the sites will just list the products that bring in the most commission and only 30% trust them to find the best price available.

Most Popular Sites

In the survey conducted by Which? the two most popular price comparison sites offering a vast range of deals where identified as Moneysupermarket (used by 36% in the last year) and Confused.com (30%).  Additional frequently used sites include GoCompare (16%), Comparethemarket (14%), uSwitch (11%), TescoCompare (6%) and Moneyextra (3%).   Impact Media have also more recently suggested that Google appear to have cornered another market; with 17.9 million users in the US now using Google product search each year and they are now fast becoming the leaders in shopping comparison services.

Can they be trusted?

In a virtual world where choice is almost limitless, online shopping price comparison websites are a great user friendly tool and provide a good starting point for consumers wanting to check out the various deals available. Consumers must be aware of the concerns with these sites and never just visit one site. If you are careful and look into the finer details of the deals available, there are a number of significant savings out there to take advantage of!