Advertise Your Listings at Wal Mart
Haven’t we heard this story before? (see Real Estate Search Stores - Coming Soon?)
Walmart has quietly launched a new classifieds portal on their web site Walmart.com (see Walmart Launches Classified Listings).
The service is powered by Oodle and has a dedicated real estate section.
I have to say it felt a little weird searching for houses on Walmart’s site - but I’m not a regular Walmart shopper. And I had quite a few problems accessing the site too which dampened the experience.
But I think the greater trend we’re seeing here is that map-based real estate search is fast becoming ubiquitous.
Oodle’s platform and competitors like Vast which power these initiatives are easily deployed on just about any site and I suspect we’ll start to see even more online retailers leap on this band wagon too.
The challenge here is how do the dedicated real estate search portals compete with these retail giants?
Pretty paltry traffic in comparison.
And I wonder do people really care where they start a real estate search online? Is searching at Walmart.com any different from Zillow.com? Do people know that they aren’t seeing all the listings? Do they care?
These are some of the questions I’m wrestling with.
One upside is that it’s almost impossible to find the classifieds link on Walmart’s home page. So they certainly aren’t doing all they can to drive traffic there - no need to hit the panic button yet.
But like I said, I think this is a growing trend. Perhaps Trulia has recognized this and realized that building a single destination is a long, expensive process. Perhaps why they’ve built the Trulia Publisher Platform to enable them to power these kinds of partnerships.
So how ultimately can the real estate destinations compete?
It’s no longer about just getting the listings - listings are everywhere. It’s going to come down to context and content and providing a great experience. Something these white-labeled retailer sites can’t deliver.
On the flip side - agents you just got a bunch more destinations to advertise your listings. And I guess that’s a good thing.
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10 Comment(s)
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Jon McAchran | Jun 6, 2008 | Reply
Here's the $1,000,000 question: If you post to a listing aggregator that submits listings to Oodle already, does it automatically show up on Wal-Mart.com now?
Tom | Jun 7, 2008 | Reply
Uhh.. not sure I'd feel comfortable with finding my dream home at Wal-Mart. My dream breakfast cereal maybe.
UK's biggest supermarket chain, Tesco, went a step further last year by offering homeowners a listing + agency service for a fixed fee of about $400. I don't think it had time to be tested property on the market as the service came under heavy fire from both industry and regulators. I believe it's now folded. More on that here for example in case anyone's interested: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/article….
Tom
Jonathan Christopher | Jun 8, 2008 | Reply
That's over the top. Wal Mart needs to but out of some things and this is one of them. It should be boycotted.
R Chandler | Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
Listing aggregate sites are useful for distributing data, but should not be confused with advertising. There's generally little there to promote the individual agent or broker. And while good seller representation means getting them the maximum exposure, what percentage of visitors to Walmart.com actually went there to shop for real estate?
njhomes | Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
we built our own online business directory to feature local business and promote agents in the business community . surfyourtown.com
local b2b marketing to compete with national outlets.
retrove | Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
I think it depends on the level of sophistication of the searcher. Certain sites will attract a different level of buyer… so with that said, a Walmart maybe a good source for first time buyer type listings.
Personally, I think Walmart purpose is not to get into real estate but to use the listings as a “life event” identifier for their clients. When buying or selling is typically the time when shoppers purchase alot of products and Walmart wants to be in front of them at that moment. They will probably run this beta test then start to incorporate some type of offer for users to shop back at walmart.
More importantly is this issue…
“Do people know that they aren’t seeing all the listings? “
As there are more and more sources of to advertise listings and this will become a bigger and bigger issue and consumers are becoming more more sophisticated in searches as evident by the long tail searches of 4 words or more now.
Alex chang | Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
Before founding Roost.com I spent 4 years at Walmart.com. I won't presume to know their current motivation, but I would guess there are a couple of dynamics at play here.
First, as big as it is, Wal-Mart has a deep and personal relationship with its customers. Loyal Wal-Mart shoppers are incredibly invested with the brand so in many ways it makes sense to try to help those customers in all sorts of ways beyond just the weekly retail shopping experience. Wal-Mart helps folks cash checks, and so on.
Second, strategically I doubt this is about Real Estate specifically. Since the deal looks to be an Oodle partnership, I would imagine that it is part of a broader strategy to leverage the considerable consumer traffic Walmart.com gets to its site and channel it into some monetization/share of wallet around secondary goods (think eBay and Craigslist).
They're smart folks there in Brisbane, but it can be challenging for them to channel traffic to non core businesses. So it will be interesting to watch how this evolves.
Overland Park Real Estate | Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Wow, that did seem really weird searching for homes on Walmart dot com. Online classifieds & places to post your listing are spreading faster then matter after the big bang. I have the same question for both though…how will it all end?
Ki | Jun 15, 2008 | Reply
I think way too many companies are getting in real estate. Its getting oversaturated and a lot of them will end up losing money in the process.
Jessica | Jul 21, 2008 | Reply
Almost thought this post was going to be junk when I found it, but then I clicked through the links and checked out Walmart's websites, how cool is that! I have already posted a few listings before commenting and it couldn't be easier, thanks for the tips on that one!