Zoopla says more agents will return to it from OnTheMarket.
Last night, OnThe Market declined to comment on the claims.
Zoopla said traffic to OTM has been averaging about 10% of Zoopla levels over the past few months. Zoopla quoted Hitwise, although OTM has preferred to quote Google analytics.
The latest war of words follows Zoopla’s results announced yesterday.
Last night, Zoopla claimed OTM is struggling following a plunge in traffic.
Zoopla said OTM is also struggling to find “a loyal audience”.
Zoopla said yesterday: “The recent plunge in OTM’s traffic shows that it had just 6% of ZPG’s visits in November according to Hitwise and the drop is in stark contrast to both ZPG’s and Rightmove’s seasonal fall in traffic of 10% in November.”
ZPG also announced as part of its results that leads per member remained strong at an average of around 125 per month and that appraisal leads increased by 65% year-on-year to an impressive figure of over 300,000 suggesting that those agents who are not on the ZPG platform are clearly missing out on one of the biggest sources of instructions in the market.
OTM visits for last 3 months (Source: Hitwise)
| Month | OTM Visits |
| September | 3,633,915 |
| October | 3,759,022 |
| November | 2,139,301 |
Lawrence Hall of ZPG said: “Our results highlight that building a loyal audience of engaged users is about far more than just marketing spend. In a competitive market the quality of the product is what ultimately wins the day with both users and advertisers and that is what we are focused on.
“Having delivered over 25m leads to our members last year, including over 300,000 appraisal leads (up 65%), we remain by far one of the most effective marketing channels for property professionals in the UK and unsurprisingly we continue to see a solid flow of agents returning to us from OTM.”
Separately, in a piece for the Financial Times, writer Jonathan Guthrie concluded that both OTM and Zoopla need to do more against the juggernaut that is Rightmove.
His article says: “You might almost imagine Zoopla does not like OntheMarket.com, a rival property website operator.
“Alex Chesterman, chief executive of Zoopla, describes OTM as ‘a leaky bucket’ from which advertisers are dribbling away.
“Stephen Morana, finance director, says estate agents who list properties on OTM “are there for emotional rather than rational reasons”.
“He is wrong. It was logical for estate agents to band together to create a third force in property search. Zoopla makes a huge 50 per cent profit margin on its adverts. Rightmove, the market leader, does even better at 74 per cent. No matter how fancy the websites, they look like rent seekers to some agents, whom homebuyers accuse of the same vice.
“By setting up mutually owned OTM agents hope to claw back profits for themselves.
“If Mr Chesterman sounds like he never got the memo commanding bosses to welcome competition, it might be because OTM’s own stance is confrontational: it asks advertising members to use only one other property website. Most would pick Rightmove over Zoopla.
“OTM is the main reason Zoopla’s shares have lagged the FTSE All-Share index by some 25 per cent since its 2014 float.
“Zoopla lost 3,670 agent branches in the year to September, though the initial damage done by the launch of OTM in January was far greater. Revenues from agents fell 7 per cent to £58.3m.
“However, OTM has what is known as a “collective action problem”. Its success depends on many agents individually deciding to join. It has recruited only 5,000 agent branches so far. Its site therefore lacks stock, a turn-off for homebuyers.
“To a lesser extent Zoopla has the same collective action problem. It is number two in a market where competition must eventually drive down margins. Group profits before tax rose 17 per cent to £33.6m largely because it acquired comparison website uSwitch for £160m. Takeovers are a classic wheeze of bosses when growth in core activities pauses or halts.”
OTM yesterday declined to comment to EYE
Another story about how bad OTM are from Zoopla Blah Blah Blah… Yawn!!!!!
As in the words of Elsa “let it go” …..
OTM are here to stay Us agents haven’t invested into something that is going to fail… It’s just a matter of time then Boom RIP ZPG then onto the next the big Giant RM!
Next story please…. It’s getting boring now!
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What evidence are you basing this big boom of agents joining OTM? I can only see the opposite.
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Morning Smile, not doubting you but are you sure this is the case and what are you basing this on? I say this as it appears that the OTM membership numbers appear to have grown from in the last month or so as opposed to decline?
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Are numbers up or down? You and I do not know. OTM do not think of sharing so we have to guess. I guess that the figure is low where as you guess they are making progress.
It was more a comment that Boom RIP Z and next its RM.
Given the deafening silence from OTM regarding numbers, the fact OTM will not be the number 2 portal by its first birthday leads me to suggest with just a 7% fall in agents revenue and the diversification Z are achieving and the continued growth in revenue and share price with RM, it is more likely that OTM will be RIP than Z or RM.
– By the way, in no way am i gloating or happy about this, quite the contrary i find it all rather sad and disappointing.
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“Are numbers up or down?” About a month ago I took a quick check of a few counties to see how many agents were listing OTM, I had another check this morning, below is the results;
Dorset 1st Nov 103 Now 104
Sussex 1st Nov 294 Now 307
Kent 1st Nov 213 Now 214
Yorkshire 1st Nov 446 Now 457
Essex 1st Nov 207 Now 216
Lancashire 1st Nov 92 Now 97
Surrey 1st Nov 282 Now 290
I’m not disputing that it may be different in other areas and Zoopla may be right in that some agents are returning to them however it appears that more agents are in fact leaving Zoopla to go to OTM then the other way around.
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Okay. if we believe your figures to be right (not saying you are making them up but some may) that only gives an increase of 48 agents, considering they are looking at signing up another 1950 will only take another 40 months if they do not lose any members in that time and momentum does not fall.
I still believe the idea of OTM is superb, but do you honestly in your heart of hearts think they can achieve what they have set out to do the way it is currently being pushed / sold?
I cant see them any closer to achieving this since launch almost a year ago. At the moment they still have the good will and passion from core agents, how long until that wains? If OTM have 6200 agents signed up this time next year do you really think the momentum is there to carry them over the line?
Even if OTM reach 15,000 agents do you really think they will leave RM? – Agents are always looking to put themselves 1 up on their competitors so are you going to get even 5000 walking away from RM – As it has shown with Z they can with stand these numbers leaving.
I am not trying to p**s on your bonfire, i just think there are serious questions not being asked. All that is happening is a third choice portal is being created and that does not really help anybody and flies in the face of the aim OTM set out.
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Hi Smile Please, OTM appears to have grown in the last month by 48 branches across 7 counties, this obviously does not include London or any other counties.If your not getting any membership numbers from OTM then perhaps another option is we reconvene in a months time on the 3rd Jan and see how the numbers are looking in those same counties.
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Certainly be interesting to see the difference in a month.
Still does not get away from the overall low numbers and that i do not believe agents will walk away from RM in any significant numbers to hurt RM.
But yes lets look at these numbers Jan 3rd and see where the numbers have gone, Maybe start a thread in the Arena so we can keep tabs and see how it does develop over time.
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Started an interesting thread on this in the Arena, Check it out
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If those numbers are correct it might something to do with the fact that I’m being offered 3 months free on OTM and then £50 a month…….I wouldn’t be happy if I’d stumped up £5k in Jan and now £500 a month. I imagine for everyone that leaves they pull in another agent with a ‘come on it’s free to try’
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Eeny, meeny, miney, Bentley. Off to work. #winning
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OTM is here to stay regardless of the childish war of words started, and continued rather boringly & now utterly predictably by Zoopla.Like so many others I signed up for 5 years because I believed completely in the idea and still do; anybody who thought that within months or even a couple of years OTM would be bigger than/getting as many/more hits as Zoopla in my view was completely deluded, this is a ‘long game’ and if a few people lose their nerve it will be their loss (immediately to their bottom line) as far as I am concerned. Stick at it I say!
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But it’s not a ‘long game’, BSA, given Mr. Springett’s fundamentally flawed target of taking over Zoopla as the #2 portal by January. It appears that OTM’s traffic has stagnated at best and very few new agents have been heading their way in recent months. This was never a start-up in the regular sense of the term with the amount of backing and investment which has gone into it so I would be expecting results by now if I had joined.
As for Zoopla, they have said very little for a while and with Springett’s January target coming up it is unsurprising that they would release such figures. Of course their agency revenue is down but if it is only by 7% that is an excellent result after the hit they took and through the acquisition of Uswitch and diversification of products they have managed to post a record year. I’m sure they’re quaking in their big purple boots.
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It’s not about site traffic, it’s about agents.
Agents = stock = traffic = a successful agent owned portal = no more reliance on RM or Z = happy ever after.
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Just need to grow the membership numbers which OTM had at the beginning of the year which they have failed to do so since.
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I would simply like to second BerksSurreyAgent’s comments. We are in it for the long haul. I can also add that the leads generated from OTM have generated more business with fewer leads than Zoopla ever did for us. We often found Zoopla leads were very poor quality and often duplicated on Rightmove. OTM is the only way forward for High Street Agents, those sitting on the fence should protect their own business before it is too late !
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If that’s your experience then great, I know there can be regional variations. Can I ask where you are located?
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good comment except if Zoopla leads were the same as rightmove why do you enjoy paying 300% more for rightmove leads??
as an industry we all need to come off rightmove for 6 months to flush out purpleshits then return for £400 per month tops!
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Do you not think it is a little bizarre to claim that ‘anybody who thought that within months or even a couple of years OTM would be bigger than/getting as many/more hits as Zoopla in my view was completely deluded ‘ Completely deluded? As in the guy who made the claim that OTM would indeed be No.2 by Jan 2016, Mr Springer, the man who would be King? May I ask why you signed a 5 year agreement with a man whom you claim from the outset was ‘completely deluded?’
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Great, we did the same.
Reason: All the weak agents who gave it the ‘ big one’ and stayed with rightmove are gutless.
Zoopla needs to stop worrying about onthemarket and prove they can take on RIghmove.
I would happily drive a zoopla car around my city to support them.
Rightmove / govt/ online agents are all trading becuase of our business model.
End it today before they end you!
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Im not sure I understood all of Bless You’s comment above but it raises one interesting point. When have you seen Zoopla producing a press release about catching Rightmove or offering something better than Rightmove? They don’t, they are constantly looking in their rear view mirror and and in effect saying “we don’t care what Rightmove as long as you pay us too”
If I ever wanted a reason never to put my properties back with them it would be just that.
How many times must I have watched an F1 race where the commentary team have said the driver is defending his position and is losing the leader……people want to blame OTM for Rightmove’s continued dominance perhaps they should be blaming Zoopla
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Missed out the word “does” in my comment above!
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In10 months AM agents will have sold roughly 200,000 properties between them, assume value £185,000 so about £444 million commission, ball park £90 million profit, £106 million profit for the financial year. That’s not a bad collective performance and given the market bias of location and market sector that estimation is probably very conservative.
It makes you think what would happen if Agents Mutual suddenly stopped and understood the value of utility switching and perhaps understood the process of utility switching a little better.
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