Pressure Group Calls on Rightmove to Diversify Revenue Stream Ahead of Results Announcement

The Say No To Rightmove pressure group, made up of over 3,300 offices from 1,750 over agencies, has released a statement as the British portal giant is set to announce its interim financial results. The tone of the statement is somewhat less confrontational than previous missives and calls on the portal company to use the announcement of its results to get behind UK estate agencies and outline a long term vision for working with the industry to make pricing fairer.

Written by movement founder Rob Sargent the statement criticises Rightmove for not previously outlining a long term vision. It also highlights the fact that the portal lost 1,238 agency branches from its list of advertisers from June 2018 to 2019 and speculates that with increased financial pressure resulting from the lockdown period Rightmove may lose more advertisers. Interestingly, Sargent, whose own agency recently signed up to list with challenger portal Homesearch, says that other portals are catching up and are playing much nicer with their customers:

“Rightmove is no longer the only game in town. It no longer carries ‘whole of market’ listings and the other major portals are catching up fast. The others also appear to be much more agent-friendly in their approach”

The statement ends on a conciliatory note with Sargent asking Rightmove to diversify their revenue streams, something that UK rival portal Zoopla has been doing for many years in part to avoid an increase in ARPA being its only way to grow.

“We look forward to seeing Rightmove’s statement and hope and believe they will do the right thing: investing in technology to aid and stimulate property transactions, broadening of the source of their revenue streams, and reversing the excessive leveraging of UK estate agency businesses.”