eBay Ink » loquo http://ebayinkblog.com an inside look at the wide world of eBay, Inc. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:17:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Oodles of Opportunities http://ebayinkblog.com/2008/06/05/oodles-of-opportunities/ http://ebayinkblog.com/2008/06/05/oodles-of-opportunities/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:00:31 +0000 Richard Brewer-Hay http://ebayinkblog.com/?p=101 Kijiji Logo
Wal-Mart quietly launched its own Classified Listings service at the end of last month partnering with Oodle to deliver the service. With the recent headline-grabbing news for online classifieds with both eBay’s Kijiji and Craigslist, I was surprised that this only raised a few eyebrows online. Although, it does confirm what we talked about on Ink last month; that the U.S. classifieds market continues to grow and represents the largest eCommerce market in the world… with still endless opportunities to grow further.

I asked Martin Herbst, general manager of Kijiji.com, what he thought of the recent news. He indicated a genuine excitement towards Wal-Mart’s launch, explaining that it reaffirmed Kijiji’s understanding of the market’s potential and that he was not surprised a large brand like Wal-Mart would jump in. However, he did go onto to stress that their decision to partner with Oodle, a classifieds search platform, is quite different from Kijijji’s approach to the market:

“We focus on building local communities by providing our users with an online marketplace to inquire, meet, transact and share with others in their town. Everything starts with this local community. Consequently, it’s very important for us that ads are posted directly by Kijiji users.”

He went on to add…

“We think this approach, supported by a very easy-to-use interface and clean environment, will allow us to capitalize on the market’s full potential and continue our explosive traffic growth. This potential is reflected every day in our community of over four million Kijiji users who often share their wonderful experiences with us, whether it’s finding a new puppy, buying a car from a neighbor, selling a couch, or finding a nanny for their kids.”

Given Wal-Mart’s core focus on new retail goods, I don’t think it’s a surprise that they chose to partner with an established classifieds aggregator over building their own from scratch. However, given that Oodle is essentially a search engine for classifieds (and less of a true marketplace) it does make for an interesting partnership. One could argue that with eBay already established as the leader in consumer-to-consumer marketplaces, the extension into consumer-to-consumer classifieds marketplaces represents a much more logical, natural extension of their business. But, as Martin indicated, it’s a huge market with plenty of room for new players. Why wouldn’t the “mother of all marketplaces” get in on the online classifieds action?

On a related note, I received some one-off emails since I first referenced Kijiji – ranging from “What’s up with that name?” to “how do Classifieds fit into the big picture for eBay?”. Some fast facts follow:

– Kijiji means “village” in Swahili and was first introduced in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan and Taiwan back in early 2005. Later that year, Kijiji spread to Austria, Switzerland and India. In July, 2007, eBay launched Kijiji U.S. in 220 cities.

– Kijiji is available in more than 1,000 cities/neighborhoods around the world with over 47 million users.

– Classifieds is the fastest growing business unit within eBay Inc. The Classifieds business includes five major brands: Gumtree, Kijiji, LoQUo , Marktplaats and Mobile.de.

Cheers,
RBH

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