Rightmove has ‘Millions More Buyers’ than its competitors and is the undisputed best place to advertise properties, an analyst has said.
Mike DelPrete, who looks at property portals across the globe, says that the top sites benefit from network effects that give them “unprecedented market power and an impregnable moat to repel competition”.
Network effects mean that the more users a service has, the more valuable it becomes: Facebook and eBay are classic examples.
Such businesses are incredibly difficult to displace, says DelPrete, even where a challenger’s product is better.
Sellers simply want to advertise to the biggest audience possible, and buyers want the largest selection possible.
The slogan “Millions More Buyers” is used by REA Group in Australia, the world’s most profitable portal.
In the UK, says DelPrete, Rightmove’s dominance shows no sign of waning.
Of the three main portals, Rightmove had easily the most total visits in January, and the most new visits – despite both Zoopla and OnTheMarket recording larger percentage increases in their own traffic.
Comments (52)
PeeBee? You’re on form, Geordie Style
Rightmove? The only thing worse? ……..that other Virus that we are battling with.
It’s the investors propping up Rightmove as they just can’t see it failing. Negative Exhibit No 1 – Purplebricks ……..Booooooom? BUST!
Rightmove is simply a Switch, which a majority of us reach for every month …….however, bitter winds are circling and we will recognise that it’s not worth reaching for the Rightmove Switch.
The Motto for Our Industry in 2020?
“ Rightmove have shown Our Industry NO RESPECT ……..it’s time that we reciprocated “
How to though? I’m in but where? Even this place is tiny, probably four decent offices across the regular posters if staff or owners….
It probably isn’t a comforting thought for a lot of people but there is literally only 1 person who is prepared to and capable of challenging the ******* the industry is being given by some suppliers and the groupies who schmooze and support them.
My first post after 10 years since I started my business and it can only be the rightmove topic that would have prompted me to do this. I called Rightmove about this an hour ago, they said they were going to release a statement shortly about what they are planning on doing to ‘help us’. I hate Rightmove with every ounce of my being, they’re the embodiment of corporate greed with zero thanks to all of us who have got them where they are. Its easy to say ditch them and go onthemarket but they courted my business and then dropped the clanger to say no online agents – effectively turning their noses up at me. If they didn’t want my money then they’re not getting it now despite the numerous sales calls I’ve had from them.
Perhaps EYE would like to invite RM to read this thread and comment?
Great idea
BTW, Locally in NW London we now have about 15/20 agents “on board”
Anymore want to join?
They don’t care. Never have.
Could be that this latest issue will see the charts align to cost as opposed to anything else.
SO…..how do we all go about this…..?
The answers you will receive are wholly dependent upon the agenda of the proposer – which is a great shame as it is the common good of an entire industry and those that it serves that is at stake.
RM pricing is getting very close to being salary for a full time employee for some agents to be pro-active at working their mail box and is 100% more efficient than any web portal … waiting and waiting and waiting.
Good point, so come on people is it Rightmove or a member of staff? You can’t have both. Choose wisely.
Is now not the moment for Rightmove to make the ‘right move’ and go tariff free to all agents for a 6 month period? They are sitting on a huge war chest of cash, so surely now is the time to put their arm around the very agents that made them the successful business they are today? Thoughts?
Robert Sargent
CEO – The Acorn Group
Absolutley, can we get some traction.
Maybe approcah Propertymark to spread the word?
Agreed, this is their moment, but it should have been their idea, not a reaction to sensible suggestions from their customers.
The government recognises that businesses are going to need help and are putting together a range of actions as we speak and have let us know.
Why then the silence from RM, when they know their very own customers and the lifeblood of their business will be in such need of assistance?………………………….
“They are sitting on a huge war chest of cash”
They had £36million at the end of December and will have generated a further £50million by now (They also have access to a loan facility with Barclays for £10million).
Given that they have spent approx. £30million buying their own shares since January, and will be paying shareholders a final dividend of £38million at the end of May, turning off the income tap for the next six months might not easy.
As Typhoon points out in post #1 – “Agents will cease advertising if the market grinds to a halt”.
If agents want to help each other – now is the time to switch to one of the other portals and ditch RM altogether.
Our cash!
Not Mike DelPrete again! Has a track record that anything he says in connection with the property industry should be treated with extreme caution. He’s no expert on the subject.
Has anybody actually given a second’s thought to the figures shown in the graph above? To what they actually represent?
To their “value”?
Let’s assume that something in the region of 100000 sales were agreed in the month of January. You can tinker with that figure all you like – but I would suggest it’s only gonna be a few percentage points either side.
Using Rightmove’s column – appearing to represent somewhere around a gargantuan 150 million(ish) ‘visits’ to their portal in the month, it would seem that you need around 1500 individuals to click on the site to have a gnat’s chuff of a chance of a sale. Or, put another way,
149,900,000 people clicking on Rightmove in January simply didn’t want to buy anything that month.
That “traffic” just kept on the information superhighway and drove on by at lightspeed. No for a drink… a packet of ciggies – not even taking a pee-break. Disappeared in a cloud of virtual diesel funk.
Zoopla, on the other hand, at roughly 6.5 million, only had 6.4 million “curtain feelers” shooting by without giving a thought to carrying out a transaction.
And then OnTheMarket – bringing up the rear with something looking like 30 million clicks. Well – at least only 299 in every 300 drove on by…
…as opposed to 649 in every 650 in Zoopla’s case…
…and 1499 out of every 1500 that click on the pages of the behemoth Rightmove.
Recently I have seen a sharp increase in the two most ineffective (according to the above figures) portals reTweeting or ‘Liking’ stuff like
“Am I the only person who spends my every waking hour on ‘portal X’ looking at houses I’ll never be able to afford? (several winky/crying with laughter type emojis added)”
Sorry to say this, but their love of these posts is tantamount to laughing in the faces of you – the advertisers – who pay to keep #PropertyPervers occupied in their times of boredom – which, according to the figures above, number over twice the entire UK population!
A sobering thought?
Of course, there will be some reading this that say the above figures are meaningless. And guess what… you’re right – they are meaningless!
They are every bit as meaningless as those put into the pretty graphs by Mr DelWhassname.
Statistics… schmatistics – they all mean something to one and something to another. Pick an agenda – ANY agenda – and I’ll give you a set of stats to support that agenda to counteract the original claim.
But one thing can’t be denied. 150 million visits on a website to produce an indeterminable number of sales somewhere between none and one hundred thousand is pretty p!ss-poor odds to happily chuck a grand or more a month at…
…or am I wrong?
100% agree
Statistics are nonesene and only mean something to the peopel that prepare them
They have no meaning to me
All I know is I pay A LOT for very little and its time for a change
Give notice today Murray.
((75 exp3*.0.6)/152 exp6)*100= 0.000296% At £1088/ month that’s equivalent of spending £3.67m per 1%
– £14.7 million to hit the 4% success of junk mail
But one thing can’t be denied. 150 million visits on a website to produce an indeterminable number of sales somewhere between none and one hundred thousand is pretty p!ss-poor odds to happily chuck a grand or more a month at…
Been saying this for years. It means nothing, “clicks” and proves the point that web portals are nothing more than an advert given far too much credit. RM told us we were getting up to 1/2 million a month clicks but very little consumer contact …. 2 or 3 = 1 in a million!!!! Meanwhile staff contact with customers 1 in 20 sales either from foot fall or dog and bone working mailing list.
And I assume it includes ALL my clicks when Im popping in and of the portal to check any new instrucions and the competition
If it does they can knock of a few 100 of those numbers! LOL
And I assume it includes ALL my clicks when Im popping in and of the portal to check any new instrucions and the competition
If it does they can knock of a few 100 of those numbers! LOL
Absolutely. It’s a shop window – nothing more.
Just WAAAAAYYYY less effective. If you see someone looking in your shop window you can open the door and ask them if they can see anything of interest… invite them in out of the rain… all the things we were taught pre-lazynet.
The quickest way ‘back in the day’ to know what your competition was up to was to look in their shop window last thing at night. You knew they wouldn’t see you doing it…
…because they were looking in yours!
pre-lol-lazynet in another century I’d punt time not property, ” I know what you want I know what we’ve got, give me an hour on Saturday 2 till 3″ haven’t even mentioned a house but four/three viewings
We gave notice to RM yesterday. We are, as figures show, the second most productive agent our area of London, but £1600+ per month just isn’t justifiable as things stand.
Respect your braveness (s that a word?)
Be interesting to see what (if any in current situation) effect will be
It’s not bravery, it’s common sense. Unless you want Rightmove to be on your list of creditors.
I love it when ‘analysts’ get involved. This is very simple, buyers will go where the stock is and agents control the stock. If Rightmove has no stock there is no Rightmove.
What we are currently facing is unprecedented, I worked through the 2007/2008 crash and in my view, this is going to be worse.
The quicker we react the more chance we have of surviving. First and foremost our income from sales over the next 6 months is going to be cut dramatically, I don’t think anyone has an idea by how much but my best guess is between 50% – 80%.
We need to manage costs, having a reduced workforce with other staff on unpaid leave (or reduced salary) could be the answer. I appreciate the problems with this approach but its better than bankruptcy. How about cutting a deal with OTM and Zoopla for the next 6 months and dropping Rightmove altogether? There could be huge savings to be had. If you are multi-branch then possibly keep Rightmove on one office, particularly if you have new homes clients who may not share our views on Rightmove.
Everything else needs to be cut to the bone NOW. Cash will be king, cancel any capital expenditure, put everything on hold and even then keep your fingers crossed that this awful situation passes quicker than expected. Suppliers that work with us now will build long term relationships that will last for years to come.
Good luck out there, work openly with your teams and you will exit stronger.
Let’s not forget our wider community and those more vulnerable than. Look after yourself and those around you.
Not quite sure about it being worse than the crash of 2008/9 I think that’s a bit dramatic.
OTM are open to cutting deals but I had to cancel Zoopla last week as they tripled my fees and wouldn’t budge! The rep Shahid had a disgustingly arrogant attitude and it just completely reminded me of Rightmove!!!
I would love to be proved wrong, time will tell I guess. If you look at how quickly government advice has changed even in the past week and consider what is happening in the rest of the world the UK situation will worsen daily. Once reality really bites the housing market will be put on hold, the question is for how long.
Pah 2008 was a blink of an eye compared to the MIRAS winter which lasted 6 years and had prices fall back 41%.
I still wear red socks every Sunday to remind me of being so poor and hungry I only had one pair of not work socks- the red ones I wore on Sunday. It keeps me grounded and keeps my spend in check.
Not Mike DelPrete again! This is the same Analyst/Clown who up until very recently was predicting world domination for Purplebricks. Given how that turned out I’d be very worried if I was Rightmove.
Does anyone really listen to this chump, DelPrat?
It often takes a crisis to unite a group. Look at the small ships in Dunkirk or the Blitz spirit. Arguably two of Britains finest moments. Whilst I don’t compare agents predicament with Corona and RM with those historic moments it is perhaps a time when we all need to say I am Spartacus, stop moaning and do something together.
I maintain a leave RM day will bring this situation to a satisfactory compromise. RM do a great job. But I spend 120k pa on it and its too much
Murray
I think most agents would agree with you but thats all they will do….theres no action to back it up.
To stand up to RM will agents have to work together in some way shape or form….
Unfortunately thats what they seem unable to do.
I cant remember when it was but there was a story on here about someone talking to a barrister about the scenario of agents disclosing their RM pricing to each other ….and him saying that it would anti competitive…..
This seems such a fundamental idea that I am surprised that agents havent all thrown a few quid in a pot and paid for legal advice on whats permissable in terms of disclosure to each other. Apologies if they have and Ive missed it….
After all RM work on the divide and conquer principal ….as an agent you negotiate with them from a position of total weakness and ignorance. Collectively you may feel empowered…
I certainly would be willing to put money into said pot….
If it ws not here it was on another similar site. And many did reveal (me included)
Trouble is RM still ignore the pleas
Thats why Im suggesting we group together
Maybe we should ALL band together and insist they give us some form of Moratorium on fees until (and when) this blows over
If we all stand together they cant fight all of us?
Getting the multiples and franchises onboard will be the tough part
My “rep” (about the 5th one is as many years) is coming to see me soon…..be good to have this in place
Thoughts anyone….
‘If we all stand together‘ Now, where/when have we heard this before?
UNASSAILABLE?? There’s less than 10% difference between RM and Zoopla as per your chart. RM 9M and Zoopla 8.3M. Seems like someone got paid to paint a rosy picture for RM
Ryan, you need to look at the figures again. The figures you quote are for ‘new visitors’ (year on year Jan 20 v Jan 19) not ‘total visitors’. If you look at the ‘total visits’ graph for January, Rightmove is still way out in front of Zoopla and OTM.
The only reason people visit them is because they show our property
That’s the best response so far today!
those people who remember what the 6 year MIRAS winter did to Northcliffe will know that service suppliers who support their customers will do well, those who stretch the band too far will find it snaps.
Northcliffe never recovered from that and I believe that with two major customers both facing tanking share prices and a lack of shareholder confidence, Rightmove could face the situation where the 80% of agents who pay well in excess of ARPA suddenly realise the power they hold.
Be nice to the little guys, they’re the ones who can react to this market more quickly and who’ll find themselves making the choice between paying a dividend to a supplier’s shareholder or paying their staff and themselves.
I’m so happy I gave notice to RM, they do not give to ***** about any agent. They have stupidly slow response times and ridiculously high margins.
Let’s see how unassailable they look by about the middle of this year.
Unassailable? So not the case just watch his space. Corona will change all of that Agents will cease advertising if the market grinds to a halt. If I was RM I would be working 24/7 to try and repair the bridges their utter greed has burned between them and agents.
anyone with RM shares should think very carefully about what’s coming.
Repair bridges? They haven’t a prayer! Their disgusting attitude and arrogance towards agents for years has been noted by each and every one of us, so if this virus brings forward their decline a lot quicker, then I’d be at the front of an extremely long que laughing at each and every account manager that suffers redundancy!!! Good riddance if there’s a Mass walkout by agents
If OTM had anything about them, they would be offering new subscribers 3 year fixed price deals to switch from RM 🙂 (or Z 😉 ).
They could then afford to give existing customers a 3 month payment holiday !
The account managers will be doing as they are told by the men in ivory towers, wishing redundancy on people in these times is pretty harsh, they will have families to feed too.