Anyone used an online estate agent?

[Sippingtea]

Having lost our buyer for the second time in two weeks I’ve also lost faith in our estate agent. He promised the world (I know, I know...) and assured us he was confident the buyer was fully on board despite the fact that she hadn’t arranged a survey on our flat. I questioned this numerous times only to be met with various excuses.
Now, after paying nearly 1K for a survey on the house we were going to buy, it appears our buyers have failed to instruct their solicitor despite the process starting over six weeks ago. Last week they made various promises but have failed to follow through. We are gutted.

Anyway, my question is - has anyone tried an online estate agent? Purple Bricks, for example? I don’t see how mine can justify the fee he’s charging and this is a much cheaper option. If we do have to go back on the market - and it’s looking likely - I think I’d rather try my luck with one of these services since the estate agents on the high street appear to do very little anyway...

But I worry the online ones won’t care once they have our money. I believe you pay upfront so there’s no incentive for them to sell, really, is there?

Anyway any advice would be much appreciated.

We sold our house through Doorsteps for £99 (the value of the house was £390k so a high street agent would have cost us a few grand). Our house was a renovated property in a good location and we knew it would "sell itself", we also didn't mind going the private sale route. This is the cheapest of their packages so we did everything ourselves - I took the photos, my husband edited them in Photoshop, I wrote the listing description and organized an online company to do the required EPC certificate and a floorplan for £50 for both. We hosted the viewings ourselves, firstly we did an open house which attracted 8 viewings and then we had 7 more viewings in the following week and the house sold. The agent listed the house on Rightmove, Primelocation etc and negotiated the price on our behalf but we took it from there. We were in the direct contact with our buyers throughout the process and we found it easier this way. If you don't mind doing it yourself you will save so much money. Also from experience we have always preferred viewings hosted by the owners of the house as they feel more sincere and if you ask questions you also get actual answers as they know the property. Here's what the listing of our property looked like www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70992068.html