Supermarket Chain ASDA Opens Portal
January 19, 2009 by Emma Sorensen

Homes in Asda, known online as homesinstore.co.uk, is UK supermarket chain Asda’s answer to property search.
Tom Rossiter, Managing Director of Homes in Asda explains:
“Homes in Asda offers a convenient new means of searching for property in your local area. Customers can browse homes for sale online, via their mobile, or during their weekly supermarket shop. With around 400,000 properties to be listed by the end of this month, the service will benefit consumers, local agents and developers alike.”
Unlike the much maligned bid by rival supermarket giant Tesco to join in the property sales arena, Asda is not cutting out the estate agent.
Asda stores also incorporate display pods for property mimicking estate agent window advertisements, which, over 2009 will become interactive touch-screen computer displays accessing the Homes in Asda database.
smartnewhomes.com is helping to power the ‘new build’ element of Homes in Asda, launched last week, by uploading its extensive database of new homes directly to the Asda website.
smartnewhomes.com represents over 85% of all new homes for sale in the UK and attracts over a quarter of a million visitors every month. Developers advertising on smartnewhomes.com will now benefit from the 1.5 million unique shoppers who search asda.com, every week.
David Bexon, Managing Director of smartnewhomes.com, comments:
“We are delighted to be involved in this new venture, which underlines our commitment to raising the awareness of new homes and the deals available to get people moving in this tough market. Homes in ASDA will provide a further means for developers to showcase their product, raising the profile of their homes and developments to an even wider audience of homebuyers. As well as exposure to another source of significant online traffic, our partnership with Asda means developers are able to reach consumers via an additional medium – allowing shoppers to browse potential properties in their local Asda store, which average over 35,000 customers per week.”
- ASDA Property Website Canned
In January this year we reported on an initiative by UK supermarket chain ASDA to bring real estate in store and online through Homes in Asda, known online as homesinstore.co.uk. Now it seems that the bubble has burst, with the website being shut down....
- New “Chain Free” Portal: propertyearth.net
One of the latest additions to the already crowded UK property portal market is propertyearth.net....
- Homes To Be Listed by Tesco
Rumours are that UK supermarket giant Tesco is about to list homes on its website through a deal with real estate agency chain Spicerhaart, which purchased Tesco's Property Market last year....
- And the Best UK Property Portal Is…
UK Newspaper, the Daily Mail has unveiled the winners of the UK Property Awards for 2008. Three portals were highlighted in the awards. ...
- Smart New Look for smartnewhomes.com
UK specialist new homes property portal, smartnewhomes.com, has unveiled a new look, new content and new functionality. ...





I remember writing about Asda’s entry to the portal space in July last year, they didn’t do anything that time…will be interesting to see if anything occurs now. The whole idea of property pods in-store is what they raved about in the summer. Maybe now the site will really get going.
Seems to be powered by Property Index.
Yes, I recall us all writing about this and the nice lady at Asda sent me some marketing blurb indicating traffic expectations of 4million uniques per month. I offered a bottle of champagne to anyone who could send me a picture of an ‘instore pod’, but never received one. maybe this time round we will see a pod and someone will remember my offer.
[...] January this year we reported on an initiative by UK supermarket chain ASDA to bring real estate in store and online through [...]