Sites on the web

Colliers International, appointed as exclusive agents to dispose of 'excess' plots of land around Poland for petroleum giants Shell, have set-up for Poland, what is a unique marketing web-site, allowing potential clients to search for and acquire the sites on offer, with a few clicks of a mouse. With fifty-five plots up for sale, the internet is here proving its potential to compactly package vital information

Shell Polska maintain that the sale of the sites is quite a normal activity and occurs regularly enough in various countries. Thirty of the plots are excess areas near petrol stations Shell currently has in operation, whilst because the company has taken over other companies' stations, it has meant some existing ones have become redundant. In March 2000, Shell and Texaco entered an agreement whereby the former acquired sixteen of the latter's service stations in Poland, in exchange for some stations in the UK and this also led to Shell disposing of surplus Polish sites.
Colliers International's was the successful bid in the tender, involving a further four real estate agencies, because, according to Shell, they "undertook to sell these plots as a package and prepared a professional marketing strategy".

Web-page marketing
"We're the first company in Poland to focus so heavily on web-page marketing," says Colliers' MD Hadley Dean. "When you're marketing a building, you have boards, banners, brochures and advertising as well as a web-page but if you were to market fifty-five sites on pieces of paper, it would be a phenomenal waste of money," he adds.
At the centre of the project at Colliers is Renata Osiecka, the agents' Industrial Associate. She maintains that the web-site, (http://plots.colliers.pl), is currently being visited forty times a day and it now seems as if a few initial teething problems have been overcome, when it wasn't always possible to visit it.

Getting around the sites
The sites on sale vary from 500 to 35,000 sqm and are suitable for services, retail outlets and light industry, with much of the current interest coming from hotels and motels, fast food restaurants and car services: the plots aren't really big enough for supermarkets however, for example. Clients can buy the sites separately or in portfolio and as Eurobuild went to print, five of them had already been sold. Most of the interest according to Osiecka is in the plots in cities, which include Warsaw, Wrocław, Łódź, Kraków and Poznań and in smaller towns and villages, firms such as local car-dealers have been most frequently visiting the site and making enquiries.
On the plots' web site a database of all fifty-five sites is available and by clicking on one of the locations listed, a page opens with two pictures, each of different angles of the plot. A short paragraph describes the location, access to it, its distance from the town or city centre and how well it is served by public transport. Lesser-known towns are sometimes summarized briefly and an account is given of the firms already investing in the area. You can click on two maps to get a more precise idea of the location and the whole page is available in PDF format. There is then a more detailed description of the site's immediate vicinity, its size in square metres, its permitted use and then a list of its key advantages.
Alternatively, the user can search the site for a plot which best suits their enterprise. Almost half, for example, are appropriate for car services and by selecting this category you'll be given the list of sites. You can also search by voivodship or the size of plot. If a user is interested enough in a site to want to purchase one, they can make on offer on-line, though it is stressed that this is not binding.
It soon becomes clear after only a few minutes visiting the site, that the information has been very compactly packaged and makes few unnecessary demands on the user's time. One or two of the PDF downloads, however, include clumsy errors such as the title 'Opis' over an English description and vice-versa over the Polish.
The web site also abets liaison between client and agent, removing the obligation on the part of the latter to produce regular reports on the project's progress, "the client can print-off whatever information is in the system," says Renata Osiecka.