New figures released by Zoopla and obtained from independent web monitoring firm Hitwise show that OnTheMarket has attracted 194,000 visits over its first two weeks.
This represents an average of only 14,000 per day.
Zoopla says its own websites attracted 18.8m visits in the same time - some 97 times that of OTM.
It says OTM's market share of all UK property website visits during this period stands at just 0.22 per cent in comparison to ZPG's claimed market share of 22 per cent.
Assuming similar visit to enquiry conversion rates for OTM as for the two main portals, Zoopla says the estimated enquiries generated by the new website over its first two weeks would be less than 10,000 (so only two per branch) versus almost one million for ZPG (or 57 per branch).
Zoopla says this gives what it calls an implied cost per lead of over £65 for OTM and under £3 for ZPG respectively, based on publicly available average rate information.
ZPG also says it has already re-signed a number of agents who had previously cancelled to join Agents' Mutual although so far it has not revealed their names.
Zoopla spokesman Lawrence Hall says: These agents have already realised that the Agents' Mutual experiment is hurting them and they are no longer prepared to be guinea pigs in this process and lose out on valuable exposure and enquiries.
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Comments
Guest Dan Richards- But haven't Rightmove been spite-ing vendors for years with price increases and unhelpful features that prevent their vendors from selling their properties
i understand the portals were created for the house-hunting public and I appreciate that, but if RM and Z constantly sh*t all over the people who helped create them (the agents) then you can't expect them to just sit back and take it up the ar*e.
Guest (P) - thats exactly the job of a portal.... but an agents job is to work for the vendor, getting the most buyers searching for my property, and therefore get viewings, and then sell it. It seems that OTM has been designed solely for the purpose of breaking up the duopoly of RM and Zoopla. Agents have created this monster themselves by becoming solely reliant on on the internet, and using RM+ on all valuations, therefore making the vendor believe that is the most important thing when listing my property. In my opinion (which is as an ex agent, ex buyer, and ex vendor and current home owner) OTM has been created out of spite for the big two, not for the benefit of either the vendor or the Buyer, who will actually determine whether this is a success, and I fear that RM will always be the number 1, as most of the people I know have and always will only use RM....
Guest Dan Richards
If you were a vendor, probably wouldn't really appreciate all the data on Zoopla and Rightmove that puts many people off even viewing your property (how long its been on the market, how much similar properties sold for, a link to similar properties nearby).
We had the zoopla rep out to our office recently and she told us that the site is designed for people SEARCHING for property, not for the vendors who are trying to sell. Says it all really.
Well said Dan. Ive been picking up instructions for not being OTM. Appears me on RM and Z is an easier pitch to clients who last sold through zoopla. OTM is good for my business, because many agents are on an unknown site called OTM. TV ads not working as I ask people when they call in and when I visit. Ive got a OTM tick box and its not getting icked at all :-)
I still fail to see how this is good for the person who the agent is meant to be working for.... The Vendor. As a vendor all I want to do is sell me house for the best possible price, and to do that I need to have the best exposure to the market as possible. If there is an agent in the town who is with OTM and A.N.Other of the big 2, and an agent with Zoopla and Rightmove I know which agent I am choosing to sell my house. I don't care how much it costs you to advertise on the portals, that's what you get a % of the sale for. If you are that good at your job, and advertise to the widest audience, don't drop your pants on fees.
Of course OTM has low traffic - it hasn't even been going a month. As the famous saying goes, RM and Zoopla weren't built in a day!
The simple fact of the matter is that if Zoopla are so confident that OTM will have no effect on their long term market share and it will drop off the face of the planet sooner rather than later they wouldn't spend so much time studying figures and trying to rubbish what clearly will become great competition for them as visits to the OTM continue to rise, but rather concentrate on what they are doing and offer much better value for money so member agents don't feel the need to move. Wouldn't they
Something tells me they are intimidated at their loss of business and drop in share price, desperation. So sad.
So Companies the likes of Apple went from being a fring harware/operating system in the 1980's to making the biggest 1/4 profit of any publically listed company IN THE WORLD in two weeks did it
Has anyone looked at Zoopla's performance in their first two weeks
Give it time people, give it time.
I have told several people so far not to look at Rightmove anymore for our properties, as we are now on Zoopla and the new portal 'onthemarket'.
Three of those people replied 'Is that Sarah Beeny's new site'
Yes sir, that's exactly what it is . . . . . !
Interesting. EAT reported on the 4th Feb figures from Zoopla suggesting that OTM had had only 58,000 visitors in its first week. The same source now says that OTM had 194,000 visitors in its first two weeks. That must mean that in the second week, it attracted 136,000 visitors - over twice as many as in the first week. I know OTM challenges the figures issued by Zoopla, but even if these low figures are true, OTM will do very nicely if it more than doubles visitor numbers every week. It would imply that, by mid-March, it would have more than 5 million visits a week. Not bad for a start-up.
Yeah I'm surprised the agents have plasterred their stickers all over their windows. All yer trying to do is give OTM exposure (if passers by etc knew what it was!) but it's doing nothing for you the agent
I did a small poll. Asked a dozen passers by what they thought the OTM bullseyes where in an agents window.
Non said a portal.
A few thought the agent was supporting a RAF charity
some had no idea
Some thougt It was just window decorations
Fab 0/12 brand recognition