COVID travel test suppliers revisited

Has anything changed in the last six months?

Back in July, I investigated the price of travel tests, in particular looking at the prices advertised on the UK Government’s own website.

I found that none of the lowest prices were actually available if you clicked through and tried to buy them. Mainstream media also highlighted the issue, and in the end the government promised to start policing suppliers better and even asked the Competition and Markets Authority to conduct an investigation.

There was a brief period where cheaper lateral flow tests could be used, but since the arrival of Omicron, the UK has reintroduced a requirement for post-arrival PCR tests. Six months on, I thought I’d take another look at whether test suppliers have cleaned up their act and see if the UK Government site was less of a disaster.

The good news

The government site now offers the ability to filter results by test type, testing method and test location. So I was able to select "Day 2 PCR", "Self-test at your location" and "Post to your location" and got a list of 361 "approved providers", with prices starting at £15.

Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends.

Alphabet hacking is alive and well

You can sort the results alphabetically or by price. Back in July, the top of the list were “000 Book A Travel Test”, “0000Covid 19 private test Ltd”, “001 Covid Test” and “004 Medical Testing”.

Have things improved since then? Well, suppliers have now discovered punctuation. The top five suppliers now are “!!! 0-100 Travel 19”, “!! + + 0 0 44 Tests”, “! Covid Testing Direct.com”, “! Nomad” and “!247 Travel Tests”. In fact, a full 13% of the suppliers have names which begin with punctuation or a digit.

Lowest advertised prices

Sorting by price gives you three suppliers ostensibly offering day 2 home test kits for £15. One of these is none other than our alphabetic winner "!!! 0-100 Travel 19". Click through and you'll find that they are actually called "Travel 19" and offer day 2 tests at £64.99. Wait, that's not £15. I thought the Government said it was going to start policing supplier listings?

So how about "247HomeTesting". Go to their site you'll find that they also cost £64.99. The third "£15" supplier is "Ag Testing", who charge £59.99. Unfortunately they also charge a £10 shipping fee, so that's £69.99 really.

How about "ABG COVIC", with prices "from £22?". The £22 price is for "click and collect". You'll need to pick up your kit from East Kilbride. That's in Scotland. The home delivery kit is £75.

Coming in at £24.50 is "001 Quick Test", which is the first supplier on the list where the price advertised on the UK Government site matches what they advertise on their website. However, after you fill in five pages of personal details, you'll find out that there is a £9.99 flat rate shipping fee, taking the total price to £33.99. The pre-shipping price fell to £24, so maybe there is some place in the UK where you can get shipping for 50p?

This isn't going well, is it?

The next "cheapest" supplier is Tests4You, with a price of £32.95. This matches the price advertised on their website and appears to be actually available. Woohoo! I can't vouch for their service, but at least on price we seem to have a winner.

Amazon

The most interesting new entrant to the COVID testing business is Amazon, who started selling kits about ten days ago. Fulfilment is by market leaders Randox.

The Amazon price for a Day-2 PCR arrivals home test kit is shown on the government’s site as £34.99. If you click through to buy that, you are taken to Amazon’s site and the price appeared to be available. I’m a Prime member and qualified for free delivery.

Randox only make that price available themselves on a "click and collect" basis. Randox's own entry on the government site shows prices "from £45", which is a bit odd because on Randox's site the price is shown as "from £43 with a discount code" (discount codes are available from most airlines). Without a discount code, the price is £48, so I’m not sure where they get £45 from. In any case, these are the same prices Randox was offering 6 months ago.

I went back to Amazon’s site to try and check what they’d charge non-Prime members for delivery, but found that test kits were now listed as “Currently unavailable”. Maybe Randox has decided that with the government having kick-started the market again, they don’t want Amazon undercutting them and have closed off their access.

Verdict

My take is that nothing has changed, despite the CMA investigating some companies and issuing guidelines. The Government’s site is just as big a disaster as it was six months ago, full of dodgy looking companies advertising prices that aren’t actually available. Prices haven’t come down at all, despite what must be a huge scale and learning curve effect.

Maybe we should appeal to Grant Shapps to do something about it?

Cue the hysterical laughter.