Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Online Classified Information

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few weeks about the redacted complaint made public by eBay regarding its lawsuit with Craigslist and, more recently, with Craigslist’s lawsuit with eBay filed last week. I have been approached by a number of Ink readers and employees at eBay asking me why I have chosen NOT to address it here (after all, if Craigslist addresses on its own blog here, and here why not eBay?). I had chosen not to for two reasons:

1) I think the blogosphere is doing a pretty good job addressing the details on its own without me jumping in repeating what is already being said.

2) It’s not like I can provide facts beyond what has already been made public. Unfortunately, any questions asked here on Ink, regarding the lawsuit(s) specifically, will go unanswered until a time when further details can be given.

However, with all the lawsuit hubbub surrrounding Craigslist and eBay , it would be easy to miss a little story that ran in Reuters recently regarding the overall rise of web classifieds.

The article references motorcyle and bicycle listings on Kijiji growing nearly 300% since January, and similar spikes have been noticed in ads for cameras, phone and computers over the 80% overall growth of general “For Sale” items.

“We’ve been growing quickly as a site, but 300 percent really pops out,” said Martin Herbst, general manager of Kijiji.com, adding that consumers may be selling higher-value goods first as they try to clear out what they don’t need.

The full article can be found here.

For further reading, IBD put the whole online classifieds business in perspective back in April - showing that ComScore lists Kijiji as 6th overall in the US for online classifieds and growing steadily. No awards for those correctly guessing number 1.

Cheers,
RBH

Tagged: classifieds, comscore, craigslist, ebay, ecommerce, ibd, kijiji, lawsuit, online+classifieds, reuters

StumbleUpon

9 Responses on this post. Click to add yours.

Chris @ TameBayOn 05.23.2008 at 10:16 am Said:

Hi Richard, Worth also pointing out that, according to Nielsen, http://www.Gumtree.com is the number one classified site in the UK ahead of both Autotrader, the UK’s biggest motor classified site and Rightmove the UK’s biggest real estate website.

In early February this year Gumtree saw their 20,000,000th listing placed on the site.

TonyOn 05.23.2008 at 1:57 pm Said:

I have no idea what Craiglist is!! However this all points to a move away from traditional markets, I’m pretty sure that a popular search engine are expected to bring in more advertising revenue than the main commercial television channel in the UK.

How times change.

MechelleOn 05.23.2008 at 5:36 pm Said:

Craigslist is a free online classified ad resource. Very popular- typically used for local pick up sales, but some people ship items too. Just do a search you’ll find it. It doesn’t have anything to do with a search engine and they don’t allow PPC ads on the site. Very humanitarian in spirit and well liked among the people even more so now with the current eBay conflict. The conflict is viewed as another example of eBay trying to take down the small guy and all that is good in the world, so Craigslist has found itself championed by many eBay members both who have left and are still here.

Scott @ TradingAssistantJournalOn 05.23.2008 at 9:14 pm Said:

Richard,

Quoting a 300% increase in any sales numbers is impressive - if you know where that base number started. If you sold 3 bicycles a week after you sold 1 bicycle in effect a 300% increase has occurred.

Are eBay/Kijiji execs honestly trying to say that Kijiji is overtaking Craigslist in the Bicycle or any other market category… Or a 300% increase over (what are likely) numbers from last January you would prefer not to share… is a significant factor.

Are You?

Comments on the internal politics or decision making which led to this eBay vs Craigslist debacle in the first place might be more topical.

re: http://snurl.com/27lfk

Richard… You have a great job, to bad your not really allowed the leeway they must have promised to get your level of talent onboard…

Scott

permacrisisOn 05.24.2008 at 6:29 pm Said:

“300 percent really pops out”

Well of COURSE it does… you break ebay, people still need to sell stuff here and there, they still have accounts here with a little money left in them… what are they supposed to do.

Don’t go getting all happy. The increase is a symptom of spillover.

I’m aghast… just aghast.

MechelleOn 05.25.2008 at 5:57 pm Said:

@scott
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sell their wife or baby on craigs? geeze there are some nutty people in the world.

Jose MallaboOn 05.25.2008 at 9:10 pm Said:

@Scott - The Reuters article correctly cites Martin Herbst’s reference to the 300% figure as listings in particular categories on the Kijiji.com (U.S.), not sales. From the story:

“For example, listings for motorcycles and bicycles have grown nearly 300 percent on the free site since January, compared with overall 60 percent growth for its wider “Cars & Vehicles” category in that time.”

That said, our global classifieds business is the fastest growing business unit in the eBay Inc. portfolio on a y/y revenue basis. It includes companies like Gumtree, LoQUo, Marktplaats, Mobile.de and Kijiji — that are focused on specific local markets around the globe.

Jose Mallabo
eBay Inc.