Germany's next business model#

Screenshot of Aroundhome.de homepage

In this article we're going to talk about rising phenomena of a pseudo-search/comparison sites, which promise to find "qualified leads" (to business owners) and "qualified professionals" (to their visitors)

Probably the biggest player in the market today (in Germany) is the "Käuferportal", which was rebranded earlier this year to "Aroundhome" prior to a purchase by Pro7/Sat1 (major German TV networks) for ~140M EUR (source: pv magazine). They have been able to build trust by massive amounts of TV advertisements and many positive reviews by authoritative publications

Aroundhome office at Potsdamer Platz

We are not particularly going to review their offering, but the business model they and similar sites use to generate massive profits

Please note, that the content is for educational purposes only, i encourage you not to apply the principles in your own company/product and as a customer/business owner not to partner with sites, that use similar techniques

TLDR

Aroundhome.de claims to be a "search portal" that helps its consumers find "qualified service providers". It is not searching on the net, but only on the list of their partners. The search results are only offered when the consumer leaves his contact information and confirms his existence by telephone (which some people can not, due to their disability) The partners, then are notified, that a potential customer in their area is looking for a service and are offered to purchase their data for significant money (varies by industry, from 50 to 500 euros) For the consumer, a very stressful situation arises At first, they don't know, that their data is being bought by the servicing companies They probably won't find good contractors (because reputable companies do not fall for such offers) And of course, the data is not exclusive, meaning that it is negotiated several times at several contractors, which then harass consumers's phone

Let's try to experience their offering from a customer perspective first

You first open their website and select a product you were interested in:

Then, you answer couple questions about your situation and other specifications (to narrow the search)

You are then asked to enter your ZIP-code

After entering the ZIP code, we proceed to search (finally!)

After the search is complete, we see this

This is where we as a customer need to stop and think about. Why do we need to enter our contact and why don't we see the results right away? Why can't we at least have a list of some contractors we can call to?

Well, this step is required for their business to work, because the customer contact is their product. Spoiler: they can not show us the results, till they been able to sell us

After entering our contacts, we were notified, that we will recieve a call to "verify the input", which is basically sounds the same as "verify a potentional lead"

Now, the next step in the process is very interesting to look at from a business owner perspective

So, as it turns out their "search" is not based on web or yellow pages, but on their network of "partners"

Luckily, being a successful contractor in our area, they called us and offered to participate in their "partnershit"

It is also the first time a "Internet-Company" would give us a call

They asked to give our bank account permission and agreed to charge 100 EUR per contact. The prices vary by industry, usually from 50 EUR to 500 EUR per contact

Once they recieve such a "qualified lead", they would withdraw the money from our bank account and send us an e-mail with all the information

You can probably guess what quality their "qualified leads" are - many living too far away, many want a free consultation or services we don't offer and some are just to compare the prices, none of the promises are on paper and so on

For the customers this creates a very stressful situation

First, they don't know, they were bought

Second, they probably won't find any good contractors there (because serious companies tend to not fall for such offers)

Last but not least, their information is non-exclusive, means hundreds of contractors can and will harass their telephone

Dear Aroundhome needs to stop thinking about $$$ and be a valuable search/discovery tool for the German internet users that want find help and they should help their partner businesses become more discoverable on the net, so the customers won't even need a help of a third-party service to do that for them

Extra: as readers pointed out, my-hammer.de, carwow.com and some food deliviery services are in a similar business. Be aware of them

Lessons learned ;)