New price comparison website courts UK's 800 managed print providers

Managed print dealers can receive leads in their local postcode from £45 a month from new venture

A former Danwood sales manager has launched a price comparison website designed to deliver guilt-edge sales to leads UK print and copier dealers.

Founded in September 2018 by Michael Coulson, ManagedPrintCompare.com allows SMEs to compare the price of print and copier contracts from managed print dealers in their area.

Talking to CRN, Coulson (pictured) said he harbours plans to capture a "large percentage" of the 127,000 machines sold in the UK annually, before taking the business global.

ManagedPrintCompare.com currently has 15 managed print providers on its books, including Gloucestershire-based Commercial Ltd, Wakefield-based Area Group and Kent-based Insight Systems.

They pay a monthly fee to subscribe to its SaaS platform in return for access to qualified leads in their local postcode. The charge varies from £45 to £350 per postcode, depending on population density.

I think you'll find some people who don't want to be on there, because they believe it's a race to the bottom. But we don't want this to be just cost driven.

Coulson said he'd grown frustrated that the managed print space hadn't evolved in line with other industries that are dominated by price comparison sites, such as holidays and insurance.

"As a regional sales manager at Danwood, I utilised lead generation for quite a lot of our campaigns, but many of the opportunities were oversubscribed. We were struggling to get an RoI," he explained.

"I looked at the price comparison sites and how they dominate their industries, and thought the model could change the MPS industry, and we've developed a system to do that.

"We're providing [MPS providers] with a relatively cheap RoI, compared to that of a salesperson."

Coulson billed ManagedPrintCompare.com's model as "relatively" unique, namechecking Approved Index as an established competitor.

"However, they don't have the ability to actually build an online quote instantaneously," he claimed.

"Because we're a new platform, we're offering introductory pricing to get people on the site. We will get them winning business and get them into a positive RoI before then we then put up our prices," he added.

The focus is currently on courting the UK's 800 print and copier dealers but Coulson is keen to expand into the US and Australia, where he claimed print dealers face a similar set of issues.

"Good salespeople are hard to find, and I don't think necessarily print is as sexy as it used to be. But they still need to win business, and are looking for different ways to do that," he said.

"We are speaking to a number of investors at the moment to see if we can scale up. We built the site to be extremely automated and scalable. Our ambitious is to take it global," he said.

Despite the fact that some firms make a virtue out of not being on price comparison sites in other industries - including Direct Line in insurance - Coulson argued his model wouldn't alienate most print providers.

"I think you'll find some people who don't want to be on there, because they believe it's a race to the bottom," he said. "But we don't want this to be just cost driven. One of the big benefits of having these comparison sites for insurance and for hotels is that you can allow customers to review their experience."