PriceAdvance launched its browser add-on well over a year ago as a way to track prices of items while you surf the web. The concept is simple and highly functional as a shopping tool. PricAdvance has since undergone a major update in order to include the more than 1 million vendors it now tracks in order to provide you the best comparison tool straight from your browser.

Below is an excerpt of an interview I had with Roddy Richards, who talks about PriceAdvance’s growth, the major upgrade, and the service’s future.

Kristen Nicole: What exactly is PriceAdvance all about? How did you come up with the idea?

Roddy Richards: PriceAdvance is a free, no registration required, FireFox AddOn (and Internet Explorer plugin) that makes it easy to find better prices for products you’re already shopping for online.

I saw the potential for it while running RefreshThing – a Nintendo Wii tracker. RefreshThing made it easy to see where a Wii was in stock without visiting 15 sites. Imagine being able to meta-shop; to see prices for what you’re shopping for without going to those other sites. Knowing you’re not missing out on a great deal without actually having to go through 10 sites to find that deal. It seemed like easy comparison shopping.

Adam Gotterer, Co-Founder of MediaNext and I started working on PriceAdvance in earnest in the Fall of 2007. His incredible talent and enthusiasm has made it possible to realize the vision for PriceAdvance. We rallied around an application to a seed stage funding group, were asked to interview but ultimately weren’t funded. We used the check they gave us to fly out to interview when incorporating Media Next, Inc. and we released a beta that December.

Kristen Nicole: In terms of online shopping, how does PriceAdvance fit into this rather regular web-based activity?

Roddy Richards: PriceAdvance scans its database while you’re shopping. When it finds a match for a product you’re browsing it’ll show you prices at other retailers. You don’t need to even visit the vendor to know how much it’d cost there. The ‘net is great for providing perfect information to consumers if you have the patience and experience to be able to sift through all relevant data. This brings it to you automatically.

Kristen Nicole: Has the down-turned economy affected PriceAdvance as a product at all? Has the economic circumstances been able to shift your company’s focus or ability to market/recruit new users?

Roddy Richards: The world has shifted, certainly. Consumer spending is off, consumer debt is rising. We still have to buy things – we just need to be smarter about how we go about it. The 240,000 consumers who’ve downloaded PriceAdvance since November have enjoyed saving time while saving money and we attribute most of that growth to word of mouth after our media exposure in November.

Kristen Nicole: Since launching, what type of success have you seen?

Roddy Richards: We’re just about to cross the 250,000 install mark. We were written up in Consumer Reports Money Adviser and covered on local TV news in 10+ cities around the country because of it.

Kristen Nicole: What type of feedback have you received from your users?
Roddy Richards: People seem to love PriceAdvance. It’s “lazy comparison shopping” at its best. Our biggest complaint is that it doesn’t pop up enough! That problem is about to be solved.

Kristen Nicole: You mentioned that you’re gearing up for a major database upgrade in the coming week. What are the details surrounding this push?

Roddy Richards: We’ve partnered with a new data provider to expand the number of vendors we support (from 25 to 160) and expand the number of products we track (from 1.5 million to around 15 million). We’re really excited about improved results, greater product coverage and the added value we’ll be able to provide to anyone with PriceAdvance installed.

Kristen Nicole: What are you hoping to see with PriceAdvance once the upgrade has gone through?

Roddy Richards: Faster loading times, more and better results.

Kristen Nicole: What are the next steps for PriceAdvance, and how do you see your tool shaping the world of online consumer activity?

Roddy Richards: We’ll be improving the user experience further, adding new features that have been requested (or just make sense). We want to continue to make the entire purchasing process easier for anyone using PriceAdvance. Knowing you’re not paying more than you need to is a big part of that, especially these days. We like to think it’s even better when you can know effortlessly.

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