Not the market, not the meerkat, just the worktop. That’s what is being compared on this new website, worktopcompare.co.uk.

It is targeted at consumers and builders and aims to get them some quotes for their kitchen worktops directly from the fabricator without them having to traipse round shops with their dimensions written on a rapidly deteriorating piece of paper.

It gives masons direct access to the customer, rather than going through a kitchen showroom, which might put back some of the margin lost since 2008 while still giving customers worktops that look like a bargain.

The customer, whether a householder wanting a new kitchen or a builder wanting 100, fills in a series of fields that provide enough information for fabricators to be able to quote.

I found one or two irritations while filling in the form. For example, you have to state the colour of the granite or engineered quartz you want. There are swatches showing a good selection of readily available granites in the ‘products’ category but when I went to look at them while filling in the ‘Get a quote’ form I found I could not simply click on one to choose it and when I returned to the ‘Get a quote form’ to write in the name, the information I had previously entered had disappeared.

Edge profiles are similar. Although they are in a drop down file on the form and I did not lose information already entered, I could not simply click on one to choose it. I had to write its name into the field. Not a major inconvenience but not what people have come to expect, either.

With the quartz, you don’t get swatches but are told to enter your preference of brand and colour. No doubt customers can do their own research, but a bit of hand-holding would make life easier for them.

When I filled in the form I made a mistake on the splashbacks. A warning comes up in red pointing out where the error is, but there is nothing to tell you what you have done wrong. I emailed a query. I got a quick response and a message saying a live chat was opening any day. The form was submitted with no further problems.

On the home page, you are told that 20-30 premium granite worktop fabricators will view your requirements, then 6-8 of them will quote. You can choose to have just product, or a templating and fitting service. According to the FAQs, you can expect to save between 25% and 75% on what you would usually expect to pay for worktops.

Having submitted the form, an automatic response sent me an email giving me a password to access the site to amend my requirements if necessary and see any quotes that were sent.

The website is basically simple to use (sometimes too simple – a bit of sophistication along the lines I have indicated would improve it).

There is some work to be done on search engine optimisation – a search for granite worktops did not bring WorktopCompare up on the first page of Google and even their ad only appeared on the second page. But then, this site is competing for attention against some strong and well established worktop companies with impressive websites.

The site does what it sets out to do and although it could just do it a little better, it is practical enough. My score is: 81%.