Entrepreneur slashes cost of hearing aids (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Entrepreneur slashes cost of hearing aids

2:00pm Wednesday 10th March 2010

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A CHARLTON entrepreneur has unveiled a new objective - to cut the cost of hearing aids to those who need them.

Jamie Murray Wells, the 26-year-old pioneer behind online spectacle retailer Glasses Direct, has teamed up with three experts in the hearing aid industry to launch a new website selling digital hearing aids from just £99.

The average price for equivalent products sold by high street retailers is £1,100.

Mr Murray Wells now hopes HearingDirect.com will revolutionise the hearing aid industry by giving the public quick and easy online hearing checks and the latest hearing aids.

He said: "More than eight million people in the UK have some degree of hearing loss. I want to turn the industry on its head and offer people a much better value for their money.

"It is often the elderly and vulnerable who need hearing aids and this company is putting their needs first."

Mr Murray Wells has already saved the UK consumer more than £40million with his Charlton Park-based award winning online spectacles retailer Glasses Direct which he launched in 2004.

Customers take an online hearing test to establish their need. If a hearing aid is needed, prices start from just £99.

"I didn’t grow up wanted to be an optician or an audiologist," Mr Murray Wells added.

"But I noticed it is these industries where the customer is not getting a good deal.

"The hearing aid industry has not changed in 50 years and I wanted to put some dynamite beneath it.

‘The company is in its first stages and I am finding it all incredibly exciting."

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