ECONOMY Eamonn Fallon, founder of Daft, says there is still a large
amount of uncertainty in the property salesmarket. “Supply on the market is still hugely outpacing demand – at
the moment there are over 73,000 second-hand properties for sale onDaft.Prices have fallen for the past consecutive 10 quar- ters and a bottom could still be some way off. “Sellers are still being unrealisticwith their pricing andwewon’t
see a return to normal transaction levels until prices fall enough for it tomake sense for cash buyers to get into themarket.” On the pointMcCoy made about consumer disposable inc-
ome, Fallon sees a positive sign. “Given that rents seem to have bottomed out at 25pc below the peak, it’s now up to sellers to have one final downward correction in their pricing of maybe 20–30pc and themarketwill startmoving again,albeit at a lower pace than during the boom,”he predicts. “While this is a very painful correction for those people who
own the property, it should turn out to be positive for the econ- omy in the long termas it will ultimately bring down the cost of living for employees, thus reducingwage pressure,andwillmake Ireland amore competitive place to do business.” AsMcCoy noted, the retail sector has been one of the worst
hit by the recession.However,Fallon thinks there is an untapped retail opportunity: “Very fewretail businesses in Ireland are lever- aging the internet to grow market share like in other countries, and this should be an opportunity for someone. For example, there are huge success stories in Europe such as
Pixmania.de,
Thomann.de,
Topshop.co.uk and
Vente-privee.com for elec- tronics, music equipment sales, clothes and high-end luxury goods. Itwould be nice to see an online retail trailblazer come out of Ireland and buck the prevailing trend.” Fallon says he would set up a business now if he didn’t have
Daft. “Absolutely I would!While the wider economy is still in trouble, the internet is growing as strong as ever and there are stillmany opportunities out there.” Through the recession Daft has managed to keep its head
above water as many of its newspaper and online competitors struggled,as it always used profits to fuel growth rather than debt. “When the recession hit, we knew that the internet as a
mediumwould still continue to grow strongly, so we doubled up our investment in product and traffic.We bought some of our competitors (
Property.ie,
Let.ie and
Rent.ie).We invested in online sites (
Boards.ie and
Adverts.ie).We launched some new products:
Daft.cominNorthern Ireland,
Daft.pl inPoland,aDaft iPad/iPhone app and recently
Boardsdeals.ie,”Fallon explains. “This has led to traffic growth of over 100pc in the past two
years.We are responsible for handling over 70pc of all property searches in Ireland and are now one of the largest – if not the largest – online classifieds businesses in Ireland by revenue.”
Daft.ie is currently the sixth biggest online destination in Ire-
land, according to ComScore, and it aims to achieve the No 3 position ahead of Microsoft, Yahoo, RTÉ and just behind Google and Facebook in the next two years. “I think the entrepreneurial culture is alive and well.There are
plenty of entrepreneurs out there but I think the biggest challenge is lack of skills.At Daft,we’re finding it difficult to hire experi- enced software engineers in particular.We need to get more school leavers to focus onmaths/science/engineering careers ifwe want the nextGoogle or Facebook to emerge fromIreland,” says Fallon.
Eamonn Fallon
‘VERY FEWRETAIL BUSINESSES IN IRELAND ARE LEVERAGING THE INTERNET TO GROW MARKET SHARE LIKE IN OTHER COUNTRIES, AND THIS SHOULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE’
VOL 3 ISSUE 4 2010 OWNER MANAGER 21
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