A major new property website has been launched by a group of estate agents from around the UK. Online property searches are currently dominated by Zoopla and Rightmove, but this new site, Onthemarket.com, is aiming to take a slice of this lucrative online market.
The new site is unique because any estate agents who advertise their properties for sale or rent will automatically become part owners of the business and can enjoy low advertising costs, but in order to do so, they must agree not to advertise with Zoopla or Rightmove. If they have any properties currently for sale in these two sites, they must remove them. Online-only estate agents will not be allowed to join.
The aim of this is to reduce the strong hold that the two big property sites currently have over the world of online property sales, and give Onthemarket a better chance of carving out a place in this competitive field. Over 2000 estate agents have already come on board with the new site.
Unsurprisingly, Zoopla are not happy about this approach, and claim that it is actually detrimental for UK sellers as they will not be getting maximum exposure for their properties. Although there may be some truth in this, Onthemarket’s method may be an effective way of taking back some of the power and dominance that large websites can have over online markets. We’re interested to see how this goes and to discover whether Onthemarket can make a success of their new online venture. Could these kinds of tactics be adopted by other businesses involved in competitive online sectors and trying to keep up with large, well known businesses?