Baron Briefs

I’ve been slowly evolving RealtyBaron’s lead trading platform since its launch in 2004. In that time, I’ve learned quite a bit from users (don’t we all). For example, I initially modeled lead auctions after eBay auctions–3, 5, 7, and 10 days in length. However, agents complained consumers didn’t respond to emails after a lead auction completed.

After some good ol’ fashioned research ‘n analysis, I concluded a lead becomes quite “cold” after 24 hours…a fact that’s prolly well known by other lead services on the Web. So, I made some changes recently to counter this effect:

1. Instead of giving a choice of 3, 5, 7, or 10 days, I now give no choice and impose a 24-hour time limit on all lead auctions.
2. I added the concept of a “stop bid” which can be used by consumers to immediately stop the auction if a certain bid amount is received from a Realtor®. Not only does this prevent bidding from reaching absurd lows, but it can significantly shorten a lead auction. I now see some lead auctions end within hours of starting.

The first wave of feedback is just now being received after making these changes:

Not bad, eh?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 12:09 pm and is filed under auctions, leads, realestate, realtor, realtors, realtybaron. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.