Abstract Zillow.com is an e-commerce company that caters to homeowners, sellers, buyers, renters, real estate agents, and mortgage professionals. The name Zillow came from the phrase “zillions of pillows”. The intent of the site was to provide millions or zillions of data points for visitors about homes or “pillows” and so the term “Zillow” was born. The company is headquartered in Seattle, WA and was started in the year 2005 by Expedia founders. Zillow.com utilizes a mixed model of advertising and subscription as well as a strategic alliance with Yahoo Real Estate to generate revenue. The company enjoys strong branding and has been able to increase revenues year over year. The company was formed with the motive to provide imperative information about real estates’ listing, homes, and mortgages through use of company’s websites as well as mobile applications; enabling buyers, homeowners, renters, and sellers to get connected with real estate as well as mortgage professionals in order to best suit to their needs. The products and services offered by Zillow include: “Zestimate”, Make Me Move, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Mobile, and Rent Zestimates to name a few. Zillow seeks to provide individual consumers with an edge in the business of real estate in an industry that has historically required the professional services of a real estate agent or real estate broker. This paper will provide an analysis of how Zillow.com has been able to utilize e-commerce technology and innovations to transition many of the traditional human roles in the real estate industry to online functionality. The paper will discuss the different technology utilized by the site as it relates to e-commerce course materials. The paper will discuss the pros and cons of the different online functionality and how it compares and contrasts to how the tasks are completed in the absence of Internet. Finally the paper will provide recommendations for identified weaknesses in terms of web...

Abstract

         Zillow.com is an e-commerce company that caters to homeowners, sellers, buyers, renters, real estate agents, and mortgage professionals.  The name Zillow came from the phrase “zillions of pillows”. The intent of the site was to provide millions or zillions of data points for visitors about homes or “pillows” and so the term “Zillow” was born.  The company is headquartered in Seattle, WA and was started in the year 2005 by Expedia founders.  Zillow.com utilizes a mixed model of advertising and subscription as well as a strategic alliance with Yahoo Real Estate to generate revenue. The company enjoys strong branding and has been able to increase revenues year over year. 

The company was formed with the motive to provide imperative information about real estates’ listing, homes, and mortgages through use of company’s websites as well as mobile applications; enabling buyers, homeowners, renters, and  sellers to get connected with real estate as well as mortgage professionals in order to best suit to their needs. The products and services offered by Zillow include: “Zestimate”, Make Me Move, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Mobile, and Rent Zestimates to name a few. Zillow seeks to provide individual consumers with an edge in the business of real estate in an industry that has historically required the professional services of a real estate agent or real estate broker. 

This paper will provide an analysis of how Zillow.com has been able to utilize e-commerce technology and innovations to transition many of the traditional human roles in the real estate industry to online functionality. The paper will discuss the different technology utilized by the site as it relates to e-commerce course materials. The paper will discuss the pros and cons of the different online functionality and how it compares and contrasts to how the tasks are completed in the absence of Internet.  Finally the paper will provide recommendations for identified weaknesses in terms of web design, ease of use and “stickiness” issues. 

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………..

Executive Summary

Company Summary…………………………………………

Business Overview

Products and Service Offered

Overall technology summary for the base site (e-Commerce course material: what technology are they running, domain names, web servers, databases, page design, shopping carts, HTML etc. etc.)

Home Buyers………….………………………………….

As a home buyer, what was the process pre-Zillow

What does Zillow offer that changed things/benefits of Zillow to home buyers 

Technology utilized (specific to additional tools for home buyers not addressed above) as is related to e-Commerce course materials (example, how does Zestimates work from a technology perspective)

Pros and Cons for Home buyers in using the e-commerce solutions 

Recommendations/opportunities from the perspective of the home buyer for the site

Home Sellers

As a home seller, what was the process pre-Zillow

What does Zillow offer that changed things/benefits of Zillow to home sellers 

Technology utilized as is related to e-Commerce course materials

Pros and Cons for Home sellers in using the e-commerce solutions

Recommendations/opportunities from the perspective of the home seller for the site

Professionals

As a professional, what was the process pre-Zillow

What does Zillow offer that changed things/benefits of Zillow to professionals

Technology utilized as is related to e-Commerce course materials

Pros and Cons for professionals in using the e-commerce solutions

Recommendations/opportunities from the perspective of the professionals for the site

Overall Conclusions…………………………………………

The benefits – how has e-Commerce made this industry better for each group

The drawbacks – how has e-Commerce perhaps not met all the needs for each group yet

Overall opportunities identified for the site/future needs to meet/future opportunities suggested

Appendix……………………………………………………………