Website for comparing UK prices for gold sovereigns, britannias, etc

[tallyhojim]

Could be early days, but I've just checked the site again to see who's charging what for Full Sovs, and The Buckingham Collection have slashed their own prices by about £10 - £15 to make them more competitive. They were originally around the £310 - £315 mark.

Are we seeing the first signs of dealers using this to price match I wonder.....?

[toothandtail]

This is a great idea. Congrats on executing it well too. Simple front end with a low server load is good for everyone.

I have 2 comments if I may.

1) Is it possible to add a silver section?

2) Have you considered adding the source to github to get community input, track bugs and receive assistance with the code base?

I would also suggest that if you add a wishlist of things that you need help with somewhere, then people will offer assistance as a way of saying thanks for running the site.

[toothandtail]

I noticed that on iphone that when I click:

You can get in touch via email.

As I use gmail instead of the mail app I get   a message asking me to restore my mail app. I would suggest changing the text to show your email address. 

Screen shot attached.

I hope you don't find my suggestions too annoying, apologies if so. I'm hoping that I'm helping! Happy to be told to mind my own bloody business!

[Guest]

@toothandtail Thank you for the kind words and suggestions!

1) Happy to add silver if there is interest. Which coin do you think is most popular, 1oz Britannia?

2) It may have crossed my mind

3) Interesting, I'll change the link when I get a chance. Thanks for reporting this!

[toothandtail]

Britannia's seem popular yes.

There appears to be a few regular coins like philharmonic, kangaroos and owls that are of interest to people looking for repeated purchases at the lowest prices.

[johnno]

Have you considered doing the same for silver 

[TheGeneral]

Said it before but I will say it again. Your website is ace. I use it every day!

[sovereignsteve]

2 hours ago, TheGeneral said:

Said it before but I will say it again. Your website is ace. I use it every day!

I'm assuming you will have donated then 😉 😊

[Tn21]

2 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I'm assuming you will have donated then 😉 😊

I have, best donation I have ever given out so far

[Guest]

I have added a table for the 1oz Silver Britannia:

https://goldcompare.net/silver-britannias

It's nearly complete, a few dealers which appear in other tables are missing but I'll add them in the coming days.

[Tn21]

Wow, I have not bought silver from a dealer since my very first few weeks into PM's. Most recent dealer has been EU Mint via BYB group orders. 

Looking at the prices buying silver from a dealer won't be happening any time soon either.

 

@S2G you should put the link of the website on the title of the thread if you can 

 

[toothandtail]

On 06/09/2019 at 23:50, S2G said:

I have added a table for the 1oz Silver Britannia:

https://goldcompare.net/silver-britannias

It's nearly complete, a few dealers which appear in other tables are missing but I'll add them in the coming days.

Looks great. Thanks.

[Miganto]

I think this is a lovely site and hope to see it slowly expand to include more and more varieties of coins

I find myself torn when looking at sovereigns in that there are 3 main types sold 'cheapest', 'nearly new' and 'new' - would it be a good idea to have this split / check eventually added too? (ie what are the cheapest cheapest (as now), another section for cheapest nearly new and another for cheapest new)

Edited September 10, 2019 by Miganto

[toothandtail]

8 hours ago, Miganto said:

I think this is a lovely site and hope to see it slowly expand to include more and more varieties of coins

I find myself torn when looking at sovereigns in that there are 3 main types sold 'cheapest', 'nearly new' and 'new' - would it be a good idea to have this split / check eventually added too? (ie what are the cheapest cheapest (as now), another section for cheapest nearly new and another for cheapest new)

I think what you're looking for is a set of filters. That's the requirement, then the requests from everyone would define what they'd like in an ideal world. The developer can then let us know what's possible in the real world and put a release schedule in place.

I would guess that it is easier to focus on one aspect at a time so if anyone else has had thoughts on splits/ordering etc then now is the time to shout out to make it as easy as possible for our gracious friend @S2G

[Guest]

@Miganto Unfortunately product names are very inconsistent across dealers. From my research, I think there are two main types, which are widely sold: 1) brand new, current year mintage, 2) best value, which can be random year (excl. current), usually used. These the ones I focus on on the site and I think this grouping works well for the time being.

@toothandtail Filters sounds like an interesting idea, the Sovereigns page can probably benefit the most.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

After much deliberation, I decided to introduce paid plans to the website. This would be the easiest way for me to cover current expenses and most of all — time spent working on the project and maintaining the service.

As a gesture to all early users, the paid plan is temporarily set to £2 per month (paid annually, so £24/year). This will likely increase in the next week or so, so if you're thinking about subscribing, you can grab the offer while it lasts

Krugerrands and gold bar pages remain free to use for the time being.

To forum members who donated I will give away a few months of free access — get in touch via private message

[ChrisF]

Pitty, its your choice and it was a handy tool to look at but I'll just check sites manually.  Good luck though. 

[tallyhojim]

2 hours ago, S2G said:

After much deliberation, I decided to introduce paid plans to the website. This would be the easiest way for me to cover current expenses and most of all — time spent working on the project and maintaining the service.

As a gesture to all early users, the paid plan is temporarily set to £2 per month (paid annually, so £24/year). This will likely increase in the next week or so, so if you're thinking about subscribing, you can grab the offer while it lasts

Krugerrands and gold bar pages remain free to use for the time being.

To forum members who donated I will give away a few months of free access — get in touch via private message

In my opinion you've just killed your site in it's infancy by hiding it behind a pay wall. Most shoppers aren't going to be signing up to a subscription service to then see what the best deals and prices are. You would have been better off contacting the dealers and thrashing out referral links or some such similar to how people sell Amazon items, instead of hitting the shopper up front.

All that will happen now is some techie web building nerd will come along, recognise the mistake you've made in firewalling your site, and build theirs as an open free to view platform that includes paid referral/affiliate links, dealer banners etc.

Heck, I've just Googled the words "How to build a comparison website" and was inundated with tips and guides in how to do it.

You need to rethink your decision and ask yourself whether you have just applied a short term solution to a long term question.

Edited September 12, 2019 by tallyhojim

[Guest]

1 hour ago, tallyhojim said:

All that will happen now is some techie web building nerd will come along, recognise the mistake you've made in firewalling your site, and build theirs as an open free to view platform that includes paid referral/affiliate links, dealer banners etc.

Heck, I've just Googled the words "How to build a comparison website" and was inundated with tips and guides in how to do it.

I would encourage anyone to build an equivalent or better service to Gold Compare, it could be quite fun

[RichmondStacker]

2 hours ago, tallyhojim said:

In my opinion you've just killed your site in it's infancy by hiding it behind a pay wall. Most shoppers aren't going to be signing up to a subscription service to then see what the best deals and prices are. You would have been better off contacting the dealers and thrashing out referral links or some such similar to how people sell Amazon items, instead of hitting the shopper up front.

All that will happen now is some techie web building nerd will come along, recognise the mistake you've made in firewalling your site, and build theirs as an open free to view platform that includes paid referral/affiliate links, dealer banners etc.

Heck, I've just Googled the words "How to build a comparison website" and was inundated with tips and guides in how to do it.

You need to rethink your decision and ask yourself whether you have just applied a short term solution to a long term question.

I echo this comment, you have an interesting and useful site but I won’t be paying for this type of service.  It’s a shame as it does take the leg work out of searching sites as well as bringing attention to companies I might not otherwise checkout.

Looking in to sponsored sale links or non intrusive ads might be a better option.  It will be harder to grow page visits if the content is behind a paywall. 

Ultimately it’s your decision, hopefully it’s the best one for you. 

All the best for the future with this project. 

[Miganto]

I really hope you consider using banner advertising or traffic-link-payments (the business give you an amount per click / purchase made with your links) instead of charging the users for something that is saving them a little time / money.

A subscription would be better when you get thousands of uses a day and give thos epeple added benefits over the standard subscription (like this site)

Not many people will pay to see which site is better when we could just save each of your links as favourites and check them once a day and paying to get that benefit, this early on, is unlikely.  I am unsure how you will generate new subscriptions when the site is mostly found through here and people won't see the real benefit until they've used it.

 

Your site is very useful and I hope to see it grow

Edited September 12, 2019 by Miganto

[Guest]

@RichmondStacker @Miganto Thank you for the kind words and for your comments.

I understand that not everyone will be able to justify paying for the service, and that's fine. If you're happy to do your own research every time before you invest, then you don't need the service to help you.

The service is for those who buy gold frequently, and want a reliable tool that gives them all the data they need to make a quick decision. If Gold Compare saves you more than £2-3 a month, plus time, then it's clearly worth the money. I'm also going to continue improving the service and upcoming features (such as custom dashboards for collectors and a "lowest premium" table for investors) will add more value for money.

Of course the future will tell

[tallyhojim]

41 minutes ago, S2G said:

@RichmondStacker @Miganto Thank you for the kind words and for your comments.

I understand that not everyone will be able to justify paying for the service, and that's fine. If you're happy to do your own research every time before you invest, then you don't need the service to help you.

The service is for those who buy gold frequently, and want a reliable tool that gives them all the data they need to make a quick decision. If Gold Compare saves you more than £2-3 a month, plus time, then it's clearly worth the money. I'm also going to continue improving the service and upcoming features (such as custom dashboards for collectors and a "lowest premium" table for investors) will add more value for money.

Of course the future will tell

But it won't though, will it? You have already stated in a prior post that the annual subscription fee will likely be increasing in the next week or two, so any savings a customer makes by purchasing from the cheapest dealer will likely be swallowed up by your site fee, making any savings null and void.

And how do you know your site will be catering to those who are only frequent gold buyers? Have you conducted any market research to establish this hypothesis? How do you know that those who are frequent gold buyers don't know where the cheapest deals already exist? Have you tracked click through's to ascertain which items are the most popular? If so, does that information tell you anything in how you can create affiliate link programs with dealers?

There's a reason why all these comparison sites don't do paywalls - because they don't work.

Then there are other issues. You intend to take subscription payments. What have you done to ensure your are fully GDPR compliant? It's a lot more than just plonking a GDPR statement on a website, I assure you. By accepting subscription payments that now means you fall under various anti money laundering and tax regulations. Have you done any research on this? And how is that payment information retained and secured? What is your business contact details (telephone number/address etc) as these are all legal requirements. I've read through all your T&C's and cannot see any of that legally required information anywhere. Your T&C's state you don't offer refunds - have you had any confirmation that such a policy is legal under the Law of England and Wales (assuming London is your true location)? Have you had confirmation that your T&C's itself are fully compliant and legal?

The moment you decided to turn it from a hobby site into a business platform, you opened yourself up to a whole universe of legal requirements.

[sovereignsteve]

It's my guess this type of site will appeal more to the casual buyer or someone who buys regularly but say, once a month. The truly regular gold buyer will have their sources and routes to purchase and probably won't need a site such as this. Therefore to charge for it's use is contra-indicated in my view.

[TheGeneral]

I really liked your site but I don’t buy enough gold (once a month and small amounts) to justify the subscriptions.

Thanks for your time  and hope it works out in the end.