Zillow Business Model
Autor: zhiyiliu • May 23, 2016 • Case Study • 647 Words (3 Pages) • 957 Views
Jason Liu
ESM Fall 2014, Task 1
Zillow Business Model
Introduction
In Zillow’s own words, “Zillow is a home and real estate marketplace dedicated to helping homeowners, home buyers, sellers, renters, real estate agents, mortgage professionals, landlords and property managers find and share vital information about homes, real estate, mortgages and home improvement”.[1] This report gives a high level overview of Zillow’s business model.
Product Strategy
Zillow claims itself as a media company. As a software based company, it basically provides software-as-a-service (database of sale/rental listings). It started with zillow.com, which is its main site where users can browse homes that are for sale or for rent in the United States. Over the years, it has acquired many small online real estate companies. Today on its website, it lists 11 products under its portfolio. Some are integrated into zillow.com while some are independent, such as streeteasy.com.
With Zillow’s different products, a buyer can browse homes, get estimate, contact agents, shop mortgage and even connect with local pros on home improvement. An agent on the other hand, can list and mange homes, build the agent’s own site and provide customer support. However, even though it has many different products, the single most important product is still zillow.com, its main site. All the other products are either complementary or extension of the main site. The purpose of other products is to help create an eco-system where users will stick to Zillow for all their real estate need.
In late July 2014, Zillow the most trafficked real estate website, announced the acquisition of Trulia, which is a competitor and is No. 2 in terms of traffic. The $3.5-billion deal creates a digital advertising juggernaut that could control more than 70% of online real estate searches.[2] It is clear that Zillow wants to dominate the online real estate listings and searches. It wants to be the one-stop-shop for any real estate need.
Revenue Logic
In 2013, Zillow generated 198 million in revenue. From reading its 10-K,[3] it’s clear that there are 3 main revenue streams
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