First place
The Site Next Door
Company: Elizabeth Gray-Carr, Realtor
Web address: www.callelizabeth.com
Why it won: CallElizabeth.com builds relationships with customers by offering interactive tools and unusually detailed information, including personal Web pages.
Company revenues: $250,000 (in commission income reflecting $12 million in home sales)
Site-launch cost: $5,000
Judge's view: "This site makes creative use of 360-degree viewing to give the customer complete access to offerings in an easy-to-navigate format that puts the viewer right in the middle." --Jed Emerson
Like all successful real estate agents, Elizabeth Gray-Carr is a people person. She is a walking font of information about school districts, developments, mortgage rates, recent sales -- you name it -- in her hometown of Anderson, S.C. The genius of the independent Prudential Real Estate broker's Web site is that Gray-Carr, collaborating with her husband and Web-site designer Tom Carr, has been able to translate all that knowledge (along with a personal touch) to the Internet. From the smiling, full-length picture of Gray-Carr on the home page to the photos and bios of her three colleagues, Gray-Carr's site feels warm and approachable.
But being cozy isn't enough to make the site a winner. What separates CallElizabeth.com from the rest is its utility. For buyers, the site lists the agency's entire inventory of homes on the market and provides a 360-degree virtual tour of many of them. Buyers can also access extensive information on their desired neighborhoods, including the prices of homes that have sold recently, as well as school-district data and copies of plats.
Sellers can use those same comprehensive statistics to get an idea of how to price their homes. They can track what's happening with the sale 24 hours a day through a personal page on CallElizabeth.com that details advertising schedules, house showings (complete with buyer feedback), and needed paperwork. Tom Carr expects that the paperwork feature -- just launched -- will cut the workload in half and reduce the number of phone calls the office has to field. Moreover, says Carr, sellers will be able to see where they stand whenever they want -- a major improvement over the twice-monthly paper mailings they used to receive.
Gray-Carr's thinking has evolved in the two years since she launched the site as "just another marketing tool." Now, she says, "it's become a tool for dissemination of information." On the site, visitors can locate nearby golf courses, look up the weather, study subdivision restrictions, and link to the Web sites of every school in the county. Anderson residents can even post messages for all their neighbors to see.
However, as convenient as the site has proved to be, it took a few months for Gray-Carr and her brokers to adapt their business practices to the electronic medium. They had to form new habits -- like responding to E-mail queries promptly and referring potential clients to the site instead of faxing them brochures.
"The real estate market is getting more and more technological, with all the dot-coms and Web sites advertising homes," says Gray-Carr. And she plans to take advantage of coming technical advances. When there are settled standards for electronic signatures, Gray-Carr expects to conduct more and more business online, including exchanging contracts. If it eventually becomes possible to hold a real estate closing online, you can bet Gray-Carr will be one of the first to do so. Says Gray-Carr, "If you want to stay in this business, you have to stay on top of the technology." --Lauren Gibbons Paul
Second place
Keep 'Em Coming Back for More
Company: Flying Noodle Inc.
Web address: www.flyingnoodle.com
Why it won: The site has promoted an unusually high level of customer retention.
Company revenues: $400,000
Site-launch cost: $13,000
Judge's view: "The site allows one to move easily to purchase items and get on with it." --Jed Emerson
In 1994, Raymond K. Lemire was casting about for something to do with his life. The business that he'd been running, which sold bicycle trips all over the world, had just merged with another company. At that point, Lemire was sure of two things: his new business had to be direct mail, since that's what he knew, and it had to relate to food, since that was his passion. In 1995 he started a mail-order pasta club designed to appeal to harried professionals who want gourmet meals. Today Flying Noodle Pasta Club members receive two high-end pastas and sauces (such as strozzapreti and artichoke lemon pesto) by mail -- the "flying noodles" -- a month.
Lemire, who calls himself the "Big Parmesan," launched a Web site at the end of 1995. It rapidly cooked up more than 75% of his sales. A respectable 60% of his Web customers buy from the site again after their first order -- a rate that Lemire says is unusually high for his industry. "The hardest thing in the direct-mail business is to get the second sale," he says, at his office in Hanover, Mass. Club members can have their purchases automatically billed to their credit cards, a practice that contributes to repeat sales. More than 12,000 people subscribe to Flying Noodle's monthly E-mail newsletter. Web Awards judge Don Peppers pointed to the high repeat-customer rate and a lengthy newsletter subscriber list as signs that Flying Noodle is a customer-retention star.
But Lemire is not one to rest on his laurels. He plans to add a gift-management capability to the site and to sell all the accoutrements for cooking pasta to its al dente best. Says Lemire, "We're trying to put people at ease with the experience of buying gourmet food. It's just food. It's not something you have to bow down to." --L.G.P.
Third place (tie)
Water Views
Company: Starlite Houseboats Inc.
Web address: www.starlitehouseboats.com
Why it won: The site's interactive tool allows users to design and price the houseboat of their dreams.
Company revenues: $2 million
Site-launch cost: $7,500
Judge's view: "While a drawback is that someone is not likely to order a $150,000 boat based on surfing a single site, it does serve as a solid marketing tool to engage prospective customers who may order off the site or otherwise continue to connect with the seller." --Jed Emerson
Houseboats have come a long way. Tubby eyesores of old, they are now more likely to boast king-size beds, jumbo jacuzzis, elegant flying bridges, and high-octane engines. Two things haven't changed though: they're still found mostly on fresh water (they're not equipped to handle open ocean), and they're mostly used as alternate living spaces. However, a new twist is that their builders are increasingly likely to be trolling for business in cyberspace.
