Digital Business: Zillow's Industry Disruption Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Zillow, a leading real estate company, examining its e-commerce strategy and its disruptive impact on the industry. It explores the opportunities presented by e-business, such as increased market reach and cost-effectiveness, while also addressing the challenges, including security risks and the decline of traditional business models. The report uses real-world examples to illustrate these points, including the success of companies like OYO Rooms and the strategies employed by entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the report delves into Zillow's background, its role in empowering consumers, and its influence on the property market. It concludes by summarizing the effects of e-business on the real estate sector, emphasizing the need for businesses to adapt to the changing landscape and address the challenges posed by online platforms. The report references various academic sources and industry reports to support its analysis.

Running Head: DIGITAL BUSINESS 0
Digital Business
(Student Name)

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background of the company............................................................................................................3
Opportunities included in E-commerce sector................................................................................3
Challenges in E-commerce Sector...................................................................................................4
Some real Example..........................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
E-business is a very comprehensive word going on in the today’s world of economics it is simply
“doing business electronically with the help of internet” (Mazzarol, 2015). Here the buyer and
seller do not meets personally or say physically they get into to touch only through virtual world.
It was started in 1966. The features which are incorporated in the history or say in the word of e
business are:-
 That it is very east to set it up in the actual working place
 Cheaper than the old business practice
 There are no boundaries for trade
 Business hours are very much flexible in the process of business
 The time frame is very fast to do business.
 Buyers and sellers do not meet each other
 Trust is the key factor on which business is proceed
 Risk factor is at its heights as compared to the regular business (Soto-Acosta, Popa and
Palacios-Marqués, 2016)
In the following part there will be detailed analysis of the Zillow that may create opportunity or
challenges for the company to the certain extent.
Background of the company
Zillow is one of the leading real estate companies as well as also provide service of rental that is
dedicated to empowering the consumers with the knowledge, data as well as inspiration around
the place they call home. The company connects the consumers with the best local professionals
who can support them. The company also serve full lifestyle of owing as well as living in a home

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which includes selling, buying, financing, remodelling, renting and other more. The company
has provided 110 million of US homes to the individuals that include homes for e rent, homes for
sale as well as home that are not currently on the market. The company was introduced in the
year 2006 and set up it does headquarter in Seattle. The company operates the most famous suite
of mobile real estate apps, with more than two dozen apps across all major platforms (Zillow,
2019)
Opportunities included in E-commerce sector
There are certain opportunity for the ecommerce sector and Zillow that are explained in below
points:
 In today’s world the e-business has emerged from a very tiny to a very vast sector. There
has been a great increment on the places or the various aspects of industry to business on
internet. It has put down a great impact on the economy of a nation also here the cost and
the physical appearance does not matter (Choshin and Ghaffari, 2017).
 All the work can be performed in just chilling in an A/C cabin of your office. There is no
real meeting done by the seller and the buyer. Therefore, they will be more satisfied for
their work that minimise the mobility ratio for the company which enhance its
performance to the certain level.
 It has incorporated its roots to each and every aspect of the industry. Anything can be
purchased and traded on internet through a web site or a simple application in your
phone. The trade has become very easy and in each hands of the people at a very large.
There is always an ease of doing business for any buyer or seller, one can perform its
different tasks at a time in the place of doing something different. The time is saved at a
very large scale which will give an advantage to this mode of business for Zillow (Kurnia
et al., 2015).

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 The company can able to target huge number of consumers in more effective manner at
minimum cost that enhances its revenue ratio in an effective and efficient manner.
 As the report of the Zillow which represent that it has increasing its revenue to $1.48
billion with a net profit of about $0.454 billion but at the same time though the
international sales has increased to 31.56% but the expenditure tunes down to $1462
million meaning the expenses are very much in the huge amounts than the sale coming
out from the international markets (Saraiva et al., 2016). The customer does not want to
come down to the real estate shop and other mediators as the prices and time feasibility
provided by the Zillow is at its best. This has led to a global downfall of the real estate
property market by 27%. The revenue in the property market has fallen down by the
figure of 43 % from this online sellers business (Al Mazrouei and Krotov, 2016).
Challenges in E-commerce Sector
Here are certain challenges that involved with e-business sector to the counting of how it has
damage the traditional business model. The factor of risk come in to play here what is it is that
the order if have been placed by the buyer in the online mode whether the product will be
delivered or not. Whether there will be a fare transaction on the internet related to the amount of
the money. There are very much fraudulent transactions occurring on the internet, will there be
any perfect transaction of money or that the actual product which have been ordered for will be
delivered or not (Kaushal and Jain, 2017). Making people internet friendly is also a great task to
be performed in the whole business, will there be accesses to services provided or not. The
product which has been ordered by the buyer will be delivered or not will he different product in
the house is delivered by the company in trading business. Fraudulent activities performed by the
e-business companies have become a normal thing in today’s world. Here it can go to that

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business for the mediator and the shopkeeper has come to and ends because they are offering
prices which can’t be offered by a business retailer. There should be a check on the system that
have been followed by the online companies that how they are offering the rates in such a less
amount. The faith of the customer has also gone down to the leap because he also has seen the
events that how such variation is coming in the stuff. E-business can be a very risky in the
matters where you are ordering of product which has a very huge amount involved to it that
whether the seller is genuine or Not. It has affected the retail business to a very large scale as
now the consumer is going through the e way to buy a product which is affecting the taxi
business also as the new application named as OLA, UBER, MY CA, etc. are taking the
consumers away, the hotel business has also deeply affected as the bookings are done by online
way only (Amiri and Woodside, 2017).
Some real Example
There are some of the actual happenings in this very world which are the live examples of
proving the statements that E-business is affected the whole industry categorically:-
 Noah Kagan is very much known for starting the companies in a small shape and
converting them to a cooperation which can build revenues in 6 to 7 digits. On a day or
so he asked all the followers of his on his social account that what business can he do to
earn $1000 a day or say in 24 hours. Noah made revenue of $3030 in the respected 24
hours. This is done by him that he put down a map of basic budget so that he can work
backwards and to see what amount will be needed by him to make $1000. He settled
avatar so that he can come to know in the actual senses that which group of people will
be targeted by him to achieve the goal, and started reaching to the customer who can be

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the most prospective one. Here he did made a good lot of money but there is negative
point in such whole scenario is that the faith of the customer has loosen on him and there
will be a sense of disengagement between the people who got cheated in such scenario.
After this the bank balances and deposits of some people are hurt and shattered
(Lawrence, 2017)
 OYO ROOM a website which has created an earthquake on the industry of hotels all over
in INDIA. It has turned to be a drastically magnificent change in the hotel and room
occupancy industry. OYO rooms in India a sole country has made a significant entry so
that the actual customer or a consumer can get what he is expecting from the service
provider the hotel management. Actually OYO rooms work on the principal that
wherever the consumer wants the room so that it get into connected with the whole
industry hotels and show the best price which is expected to be given by the hotel. It is
working in more than 200 cities across the Nepal, Malaysia, India, etc. so that the
consumer can get best thing in the lowest prices. The best part is that the actually provide
the amenities which are being shown in the app or say the virtual world and people are
not being miss guided. But the thing which is most important that it has taken over the
business or say the commission of the guide’s or say the mediators who know that where
the hotel will be found out by them. This app has put down the business in the hotel
industry at such a level that consumer does not want to come on the counter but he/she
wants to get things down very quickly. The hotels have to pay the commission to the
OYO rooms on the bookings which are coming through them so it has led to decrease in
the revenue of the hotels (Kesharwani and Kumar, 2016).

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Conclusion
From the above analysis it can be concluded that –e-business is one of the wider concept in
which most of the companies continuing its business and achieve great success in the market.
Zillow is considered as one of the leading company in the international market. It has expanded
its business in almost all the countries that made them successful in the market. It provides great
opportunity to the company to target its consumers. However, the e-business has put a hindrance
in the revenue earning culture of the industry as there is nothing to catch where the man can earn
his remuneration. Then business which has come down to the one & only where the actual
meeting of the seller and buyer is not done only the virtual thing happens where the buyer and
seller meets in virtually with the faith and trust among each other to conduct business as there.
Here we can say that the e business has reportedly affected the business of retailer at very large
extent one can say that the business of the retailer has gone to a very lower stage. The business
which is related to hotel and the cab driver has seen such a downfall for the regular taxi mover
and the commission based mediators to get the tourist at a particular place.

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References
Al Mazrouei, M. and Krotov, V. (2016) Gender-related barriers to e-commerce entrepreneurship:
The case of the UAE. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 14.
Amiri, S. and Woodside, J.M. (2017) Emerging markets: the impact of ICT on the economy and
society. Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance, 19(5), pp.383-396.
Choshin, M. and Ghaffari, A. (2017) An investigation of the impact of effective factors on the
success of e-commerce in small-and medium-sized companies. Computers in Human
Behavior, 66, pp.67-74.
Kaushal, T. and Jain, J.K. (2017) Emerging Challenges of Global E-
Commerce. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, 2(3).
Kesharwani, S. and Kumar, V. (2016) On your own: An OYO story A case study. International
Journal of Engineering and Management Research (IJEMR), 6(5), pp.325-331.
Kurnia, S., Choudrie, J., Mahbubur, R.M. and Alzougool, B. (2015) E-commerce technology
adoption: A Malaysian grocery SME retail sector study. Journal of Business Research, 68(9),
pp.1906-1918.
Lawrence, F.M. (2017) David G. Dalin: Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to
Kagan, Their Lives and Legacies. Contemporary Jewry, 37(3), pp.487-491.
Mazzarol, T. (2015) SMEs engagement with e-commerce, e-business and e-marketing. Small
enterprise research, 22(1), pp.79-90.

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Saraiva, P.C., Cavalcanti, J.M., de Moura, E.S., Gonçalves, M.A. and Torres, R.D.S. (2016) A
multimodal query expansion based on genetic programming for visually-oriented e-commerce
applications. Information Processing & Management, 52(5), pp.783-800.
Soto-Acosta, P., Popa, S. and Palacios-Marqués, D. (2016) E-business, organizational innovation
and firm performance in manufacturing SMEs: an empirical study in Spain. Technological and
Economic Development of Economy, 22(6), pp.885-904.
Zillow. (2019) Abut Us [Online]. Available from: https://www.zillow.com/corp/About.htm
[Accessed on 31/07/19]