Researching how was the process to open a new business open us the opportunity to dig deeper in the franchise and business for sale user journeys and identify that it was a big business opportunity for Domain Group.
CRE Franchise & Business
I led the strategic expansion into the “Businesses for Sale & Franchises” category, a pivotal initiative that transformed it into the most profitable sector within our commercial real estate portfolio. Leading the initial research through a combination of ethnographic and quantitative methods, I rapidly iterated through lean UX experiments to validate key assumptions.
Working in close collaboration with the business development team, I ensured seamless product alignment and development, culminating in a swift and successful go-to-market strategy. This newly launched business unit achieved remarkable growth in record time, incorporating customer and business feedback frequently to ultimately become the number one revenue generator within the entire Commercial Real Estate division.
The research insights
One user base, 3 pathways
Our CRE users will decide first to become a business owner and once they start the journey, they’ll decide what kind of path they want to take for that, depending of their risk and budget. New business, buying a business and the franchise world were in reality part of the same journey.
Improving the franchisee journey
Opening a franchise is the intersection between opening a business and finding a job. For the brands, is essential to obtain the optimal candidates, so the application process became one of our unique selling point and defining it the
Defining the data access points
Franchise and business for sale have different point of access for the same data, depending of the interest of the user. Making sure our information architecture nails those points for google and allows the user to recover the info that needs was key.
A new business opportunity
Developing a whole new business area for one of the bigger real estate companies is a big challenge, but it was the logical step after our deep research about opening new business in Australia.
