EBay Launches International 'Craigslist' Competitor
Venerable free classifieds site gets rival for global dominance.
Venerable free classifieds site gets rival for global dominance.
E-commerce player eBay has taken the Craigslist concept — free classifieds and community — and launched Web sites in 50 cities around the world that embody that idea under a new project called Kijiji.
“Kijiji builds local communities online, giving neighbors a way to come together around local needs and interests,” said Alex Kazim, senior vice president of new ventures at eBay, who is heading up the new project. Kijiji is an independent start-up within eBay.
Kijiji, which means “village” in Swahili, has put down roots in localities in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Though Craigslist has its strongest presence in the U.S., it also has dozens of international sites, having recently launched in 16 additional cities in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Following the Craigslist model, Kijiji will initially allow users to post and search for free. After it built an audience, Craigslist began charging for postings in some categories, such as jobs and real estate. EBay isn’t revealing its future plans for Kijiji, but said it didn’t expect the sites to have a material impact on its 2005 earnings.
EBay holds a 25 percent stake in Craigslist, which has been a huge competitor for traditional newspaper firms seeking online classified ad dollars. One study pegged Craigslist’s cost to Bay Area newspapers alone at $30 million annually.
The e-commerce player has made other recent moves in the classifieds space, purchasing both Dutch player Marktplaats.nl and Rent.com in the last few months.
More about:
Lucy helps organizations leverage knowledge for in... View Tech Talk
TVSquared is the global leader in cross-platform T... View Tech Talk
Grata is a B2B search engine for discovering small... View Tech Talk
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing ... Download Now
Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. ... Download Now
This report documents the findings of a Fireside c... Download Now
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touc... Download Now
Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...
View resourceData is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...
View resourceThis report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...
View resourceCustomers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceMarketers today need to thoughtfully select visuals that align with their content, boost SEO performance and drive ROI Read More...
View articleHow the sunglasses giant created subconscious brand recall value with music festival-goers through the power of strategic partnerships and experientia...
View articleIn life, as much as on LinkedIn (or Facebook, Twitter, etc.) people and brands who blabber on about themselves become annoying and best avoided, soone...
View articleBuilding trust in your brand is hard enough. Now take a situation where your audience is so cynical of your product offering some of them even call fo...
View articleThere is room for better lead capturing as ABM evolves in a cookieless world Read More...
View articleTop-of-mind action points that will be valuable to challenger brand marketing for the rest of 2021 and 2022 Read More...
View articleOmnichannel marketing presents an opportunity to marketers but requires better use of data Read More...
View articleThe dark horse your business needs to outperform competition and win at search Read More...
View article