Are you looking for a Compare And Recycle alternative? Phone recycling price comparison websites are a handy tool in choosing which company to sell your old gadget to. However, their focus on price and their commercial relationship with the recyclers means you won’t always get the best deal using them. Learn how MobaLoca is a fresh alternative to price comparison websites.
Table of Contents
Why you won’t always find the best deal on price comparison sites
It’s All About Price
Price Comparison Website – the clue is in the name! It probably won’t come as a surprise that a key feature of price comparison websites is the comparison of prices! This makes sense as price is a key factor in choosing a product or service. That being said, price isn’t the only factor. Service is important too. In the context of mobile phone trade in companies, qualitative factors like: quality of packaging; the level of customer service; and how the company goes about revaluing the gadgets upon testing agains their trade in criteria all play an important part in choosing a recycler. Price comparison websites will tend to focus mostly on price though, at the detriment to these other factors.
Are You The Customer? How Price Comparison Websites Make Money
It has been said that if you are not the customer you are the product (a popular example being Facebook offering a free platform to users by selling their data to advertisers). So it follows that to understand the shortcomings of price comparison websites, you need to understand how they make money. You might not know this, but price comparison websites are essentially affiliate marketing websites. They make money via commission from the merchants they compare.
“Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process.”
Wikipedia
In the case of Compare And Recycle, they are paid a commission for each lead they generate for a recycler. In simple terms, a lead is your details – in this case, your sell order details like address, which phone you want to sell, etc. This is made possible by tracking each time you register to sell a gadget to a recycler on Compare And Recycle.
How This Leads To Worse Deals
In conclusion, this all leads to worse deals for you because:
Only merchants who pay are listed
As you’ve learnt, comparison websites are funded by the companies they compare; it’s pay to play. If you ain’t paying, you ain’t playing! This means that by using a price comparison website alone you’re only actually comparing part of the market, instead of the whole market. You may not even be aware that the best deal exists!
Comparison websites are working for recyclers not you
Because they’re funded by the recyclers, websites like Compare And Recycle are incentivised to encourage you to take the actions that make them money via affiliate commission, even if that action isn’t best for you.
Factors other than price aren’t given enough weight
As we alluded to earlier, price comparison websites are naturally centred heavily on price. But give a man a hammer and everything looks like a nail! By focusing on price other more qualitative aspects like speed, trustworthiness and service are not given the attention they deserve!
The sales process is outsourced
The recyclers being compared have very limited control over what information is displayed on the comparison website’s page. For example, recyclers often have different grading criteria, and they communicate this clearly to users on their respective websites. This information isn’t communicated clearly by price comparison websites, however.
MobaLoca vs Compare And Recycle
What Is MobaLoca
MobaLoca is your one-stop-shop to compare mobile phone recyclers. At the moment, we’re focusing on comparing their TrustPilot reviews. But over time, we plan to compare much more than that! Our mission is to provide all the information you need to make an informed decision about who to recycle your phone with.
How Is MobaLoca Better?
There are a few reasons!
- MobaLoca compare the entire market, so you have more choices and won’t miss an opportunity because they will all be listed!
- MobaLoco is not paid. We are influenced by what is best for you, not what’s best for us.
- We don’t solely focus on price. We also compare qualitative factors obtained from analysing TrustPilot reviews.
In conclusion, price comparison websites have a place, but you should also consider other factors before making a choice; MobaLoca can help with that!
