Hello o wise ones,

I am looking for advice.

I have an idea about building a comparison website in a yet untapped market. The potential market is massive but getting prices from suppliers is extremely tricky, pricing is very complicated hence no one has done it yet. I own business in that market and have some solutions for the complicated pricing but no help or mentor to make a start.

Should I start with finding a website developer? What sort of costs am I looking at?

Or is there a better way to proceed with the idea?

Many Thanks,
RS

 

Thank you, animalstyle,

I have an idea for a price comparison website in a fairly profitable niche that I am familiar with. I own a business that provides a service in this niche.

Nationwide, there are tens of thousands of businesses that provide the same service as I do so I am not unique. The nature of the service is that there will always be customers that require it.

There is a lot of competition between businesses fighting for the customers. Majority of them do not publish the prices of the service on their website, instead they want customers to phone them and visit before they reveal the price.

This creates a lot of headache for the costumers. If they want to compare the prices, they have to do a lot of calls and visits. A price comparison website would be an answer to their prayers and would change this market forever.

So why no one has done it yet? Two main reasons:
1 - the providers of the servers are notoriously secretive about their prices and getting them to share would be a challenge.
2 - this is a service, not a product. The pricing is made of several layers and has to be customised to the customer's specific requirements.

Just like buying a car insurance. You go to a comparison website, enter your car details and get a list of prices. In order to finalise the purchase you have to call the company directly.

I have some ideas on how to work around two problems I listed.
I can not generate income through CPC or CPA or commission. The cost of the service on average $1k per month but once the customer bought it, they will continue buying from the service provider directly. No repeat customers.

This is as much detail as I can go in right now. Thank you in advance.
RS.

 

Yes, you nailed it, Coalission. The prices aren't public, I cannot extract them through API. They also vary depending on the type of service. Since I also provide service in this market so I have an inside knowledge on how other providers arrive at these prices.

The goal is not to send more customers to me because only local customers will use my service. Customers from other city cannot use it. Obviously, if I said what sort of service I am talking about, it would all make sense but I am not there yet to reveal it.

I am thinking of charging the service providers per click directing to their websites or phoning them directly. Nationwide, there would be tens of thousands of customers per week searching for this service. Yes, it is a huge market but technology wise, it is lagging behind all other industries because historically, it never needed to use much of the technology. People accept that this is how it's always been and the idea of getting 90k+ service providers (nationwide) to publish their prices on a comparison website seems impossible. Well, I think it's time for a change. It will provide a massive value to the customers if I can get it right.

I am not a website developer myself, so should I hire someone to create a basic comparison website and then look for an angel investor to raise funds for a marketing campaign?

TIA,
RS