UK pay-per-lead portal propertyindex.com has come under fire for allegedly listing properties on eBay.
Last week the Negotiator Magazine and estateagenttoday.co.uk both reported on an agreement for propertyindex.com to list agents’ properties as classified ads on eBay, but said that agents seem to have no knowledge of the deal.
The Negotiator quotes one agent as saying: “I’ve never heard of PropertyIndex. They must have taken the details from another website we advertise on.”
But not all agents are unhappy about the eBay listings. Jacqui Daley, marketing manager at Greene & Co, told The Negotiator: “If propertyindex can generate new leads for us from eBay, that’s great news”.
Currently, propertyindex.com has been at pains to issue no comment on any possible deal with eBay. On Friday Lee Bramzell, CEO of propertyindex.com, was quoted on estateagenttoday.co.uk as saying some properties have been accidentally ‘scraped’ and ended up on propertyindex.com and eBay, but that few had complained about the additional free advertising.
Lee Bramzell told propertyportalwatch.com:
“We estimate that the UK estate agent community spends over £100,000,000 in monthly subscriptions with three established property portals each year. In return for this fixed overhead they are guaranteed only exposure to an online audience of around 4-5m unique visitors a month. By contrast, eBay achieves over 20m monthly unique visitors in the UK.
propertyindex.com believes that estate agents should not have to pay for advertising exposure – only genuine results. We are demonstrating that agents can reach an audience at least 5 times wider without having to foot expensive monthly bills! To that end, we will continue to develop relationships with high traffic distribution partners that will generate quality leads for UK agents in significantly increasing volumes.”
A recent press release addressed the issue of the company’s partnerships, stating that: “propertyindex.com is currently working with over 100 marketing partners, including nestoria.co.uk, upmystreet.com and Google, rapidly expanding the online visibility of all 250,000 properties currently listed on the site.”
In the press release, Lee Bramzell is quoted as saying:
“Our strategy to implement a vast network of marketing partnerships with links to propertyindex.com, has been the driving force behind our rapid growth as a portal to be reckoned with. We aren’t afraid of inviting our competitors or clients to share revenue by hosting links, white labeled sites and through XML partnerships, enabling them to benefit from the income generated from these leads. This is great news for agents, who simply want their properties to be seen by the greatest number of consumers possible.”
Most recently, propertyindex.com formed a partnership with US portal condo.com, and links with email4property.co.uk.
It’s really a side issue about eBay that has got people talking – the idea that agents could be bypassed by eBay accepting private real estate listings, while most UK property portals (including propertyindex.com) only accept listings from agents.
UK property blog propertyowl.co.uk features a recent entry that supports eBay listings, however reactions from commentators on estateagenttoday.co.uk are mixed.
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Ebay I understand have a deal with propertyIndex.
In my opinion, sellers have not been made aware in advance that PropertyIndex were going to be allowed to list over 150,000 properties in classified ad format.
In my opinion, this should not be allowed. First, the PropertyIndex listings are in the same format as others, but since being introduced our viewing numbers have went down rapidly, i understand viewers have quartered, I think it’s now harder for people to find our listings.
Ebay is flooded with over 150,000 PropertyIndex listings, every other seller of property will be affected, Ebay should have told sellers in advance that this may happen.
This appears to be a bit of an anti competition issue, an unfair advantage because PropertyIndex paid over the odds in advance for the deal with Ebay. Other advertisers have banner ads and text ads, PropertyIndex have been given free reign over what they list, and against Ebay rules!
Ebay rules only allow one listing per category for classified ad format, however because PropertyIndex paid (I presume) Ebay allowed PropertyIndex to list as many as they liked, i understand there is fury from UK estate agents who have not been made aware from PropertyIndex that they were to market the agents properties through Ebay.
This is PropertyIndex spitting on the faces of original sellers who have worked hard to build their business on Ebay, and affecting buyers by not allowing them to find what they are looking for because Ebays property sections are now flooded with PropertyIndex listings.