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February 14, 2008

Watch out Craigslist, Sister Site Kijiji Is Taking Off.

Erick Schonfeld

61 comments »

kijiji-logo.pngIt’s not yet a Craigslist killer, but eBay’s free classifieds site Kijiji is taking off in the U.S. eBay, of course, is also an investor in Craigslist, but its 25 percent stake doesn’t give it a controlling interest and the other 75 percent is not for sale. So in March, 2005, eBay launched Kijiji as its own competing free classifieds site overseas. Then last summer, it launched a U.S. version of the site.

Since then, the U.S. site alone has grown from 362,000 visitors in July, 2007 to 1.8 million in January, according to comScore. (If you count U.S. visits to Kijiji’s international sites as well, the number is 2.3 million). In comparison, Microsoft’s classified site, Windows Live Expo, attracted only 176,000 visitors in January, Yahoo Classifieds attracted 97,000, and neither Google’s classifieds site nor Google Base even registers on comScore.

kijiji-chart-1.png

Kijiji’s visitor stats are still less than 10 percent of the 26.7 million people in the U.S. who went to Craigslist in January, but comScore puts Kijiji as the sixth most visited classifieds site in the U.S. (after Craigslist, sites owned by Dominion Enterprises like Homes.com, AutoTrader, Cars.com, and Apartments.com). Kijiji is ahead of classifieds sites like Oodle (No. 9, with 1.3 million U.S. visitors in January) and Vast (No. 20, with 444,000).

eBay is obviously doing something right with Kijiji. But can it ever catch up to Craigslist?

kijij-chart-3.png

CrunchBase Information
Oodle
Vast
Kijiji
Information provided by CrunchBase
  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Kijiji Talks Smack About Craigslist: “We Will Be No. 1 In the U.S.”

    March 27th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

  2. Online Classifieds - Kijiji Growing Quickly | Internet Marketing for Tourism

    April 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm

Comments

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  1. aaa

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am

    Wonder how this is going to play out.

    Surely there is some conflict of interest ? or is it reasonable for a investor to have stakes in 2 competing companies ?

    can somebody who knows about this kind of stuff fill us all in ?

    cheers

  2. HonestMall.com

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am

    its like a nicely designed craigslist.

    i wonder if this will put any pressure on craig to pimp out his site a little.

    i mean hell, i have been using listpic just because its easier on the eyes and faster to browse

  3. Jimmy

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Your stories are so much better to read than Duncan’s.

  4. Lakersin08

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am

    this sounds like a coke vs coke zero case…..duh duh duhaduh duh

  5. Alaska Miller

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:32 am

    i’ll be caught dead before uttering kijiji to someone

  6. Andrew

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:32 am

    I’m pretty sure the reason for it…is because kijiji is spending a shitton of money advertising on radio

  7. Andrew

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    also why are you comparing this to Google Classifieds which is just a directory of classfieds sites, and not to Google Base?

  8. EH

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:42 am

    ki-WHO-ji?

  9. CVOS SEO

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am

    kijiji is a link in the footer of all ebay owned websites. How could it not grow from being attached to one of the top 10 online properties?

    Users only surf to this site, no one (outside of swahili speakers) would ever remember how to spell it.

  10. Lapp

    February 14th, 2008 at 11:53 am

    I saw a new one which looked nice but isn’t 100% functioning yet, but had cool features. http://www.jicka.com

  11. Peter Antypas

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    I think it’s about time for CL to introduce an API and let others build front ends to it

  12. antje wilsch

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Oodle’s founder is Scott Kister (not Kisher)

  13. Don Wilson

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    Horrible name. Who is going to remember how to type kijijijijijiji vs. craigslist?

  14. weeeee

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    stupid name. reminds me of hana-jiji, hana-jiji.

  15. Foreman

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    It’s a nice site, well done and a good update to the Craigslist way of doing things but the name / brand is horrible! Not because of the meaning of the name but because it’s just so weird. So many times I’ve tried to go to the kijiji url, spelling things wrong and ended up somewhere else. For a while I couldn’t even remember the name at all. For this reason, I still don’t think Craigslist has much to fear from Kijiji.

  16. Keith Teare

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    Gotta say these are small numbers. Edgeio had way more than this in December.

    Keith

  17. Mad Hatter

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

    @3, except when he’s slamming old farts.

  18. Vini - Triimart

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Nice to read. we provide free global classifieds for free. Its Triimart - care business, care environment.

  19. Owen Byrne

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    I tried selling a few things on craigslist last year and found it to be nearly useless. The area is ripe for some competition.

  20. Nathan

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    I am currently rolling a product into beta that is very similar to all sites listed above. http://www.inzino.com with various social tools along with many internal functions and posting management utilities. At the end of the day the bottleneck is convincing users to transition over from CL and their “community” storefront. I was an advocate for CL for years… however there are things that simply let me down. 1. Posting restrictions… obviously we don’t want a spam machine on our hands however it would be nice to post an ad for free lance web development services in multiple locations with one ad. Currently posting ads in multi cities is near impossible and frustrating 2. User background info. I have had many good experiences and many bad experiences using CL…I could have eliminated the bad via user review or endorsements. So quite frankly I feel CL has no reason to worry about new services popping up anytime soon… however if feel they are becoming more and more antiquated everyday. Which is why I created inzino. Cheers.

  21. Anonymous Coward

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Something was published on techcrunch.com (a new ad?) between yesterday evening and this morning that causes a complete browser crash for Safari on Leopard.

    This is truly unfortunate, because Techcrunch is set as my homepage, which means that unless I do something dramatic like reinstall somehow, I can’t open Safari until you fix this.

  22. Erick Schonfeld

    February 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    @7, good point. Google Base doesn’t register either. i updated the post.

  23. Everett

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    visitors might be many but since their official launch in the Bay Area till now, the postings on Kijiji seem dismal. Their overseas classifieds look more promising.

  24. i am under age

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

    TC gets so much spammers now.

  25. bmiles

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Will ebay just be happy with its 25% stake, because Craigslist will absolutely embarass that kiwi sounding imitation of a classified site.

  26. R

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    Kijiji has overtaken Craigslist in Canada now. I blogged about it 2 weeks ago:
    http://www.storyofastartup.com/?p=59

    At least in Canada, SEO is playing the largest part in their growth.

  27. Ivan

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    eBay is obviously doing something right with Kijiji. But can it ever catch up to Craigslist?

    ————————————————————————————————

    Craigslist has a more recognizable brand and that will keep it alive for a long time. In fact I hadn’t heard of Kijiji (very hard to remember or type) until mentioned in TC.

    More exposure needed?

  28. what

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    This is a paid review, right?

  29. Ben

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

    Of course it’s a paid review. Backpage.com has a higher traffic volume than Kijiji.com, not to mention a much easier name to pronounce and they’ve been competing for Craiglist for a longer period of time… Maybe Backpage.com just isn’t Web 2.0 sounding enough.

  30. Andrew

    February 14th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    come on, nothing will ever touch cl.

  31. franky

    February 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    Do not forget gumtree.com, which is also owned by Ebay. Stepping out of the ‘Commonwealth’ areas, Gumtree/Ebay launched in August 2007 with regional sites in the USA (right now only Boston, Chicago and NYC AFAIK).

  32. Technology For The Masses

    February 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    Is it just me or does this sound way too close to vajayjay?

  33. Chris

    February 14th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    I don’t see how they can be that good if they don’t have major metro areas on their list. For NY state they have:

    Albany
    Binghamton
    Buffalo
    Hudson Valley
    Ithaca
    New York
    Rochester
    Syracuse
    Utica-Rome

    Missing is Long Island, with a population of 3 Million, 7.5 Million if you include Queens and Brooklyn, it has a population larger then most of the other NY metros listed. Good job eBay! I guess that’s what you can expect when your dealing with a west coast company. :)

  34. Andrew

    February 14th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    Queens and Brooklyn and LI are probably lumped into New York just like in real life. Even craigslist focuses mostly on New York and only has a sub tab to narrow it further by borough, which my guess is not many people do.

    Hell for New Jersey, all we get is North, South, Central wtih craigslist, and the state is a tiny amount bigger than New York

  35. Chris

    February 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Agreed for Queens/Brooklyn, but not for the rest of LI. After all, when you have to drive over a bridge or tunnel to get somewhere (where the tolls cost an arm and a leg) I wouldn’t consider that the same area.

    Besides, craigslist has an LI specific site: longisland.craigslist.org, guess it can’t be all bad.

  36. Miley Cyrus

    February 14th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

    http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....ize=Medium

    buhahaha

    alexa is the most accurate tool (it correlates perfectly with our internal data, unlike comescores, compete.com etc)

  37. Erica

    February 14th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

    In my hometown (London, ontario) Kijiji is MUCH more heavily used than craigslist. it’s unfortunate that it is so peppered with ads.

  38. uploadchoice

    February 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

    People often look for craigslist alternate, hope this could be one.

  39. Wes

    February 14th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    I think free classifieds is a good area but you need to cover the areas you cover very well for people to find it worthwhile.

  40. I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

    February 15th, 2008 at 1:34 am

    This is almost too easy a target, but kijiji is a ridiculous name. I thought it might be meaningless, but it turns out it’s Swahili for village. Nonetheless, anyone outside Swahili-speaking areas (i.e. most of the target audience) is going to find it very difficult to pronounce or remember.

    Here’s an idea - how about renaming it eBay Classifieds? Use the branding and tell people exactly what it does. Brilliant. My consultancy fee is $3,000 an hour.

  41. Paul J

    February 15th, 2008 at 6:31 am

    You guys should do some research and see how many people misspell craigslist or get the name wrong completely. “Gregs List” is a pretty high traffic term in Google…

  42. DiPi

    February 15th, 2008 at 6:53 am

    even in Europe is Kijiji very powerful indeed. The best results and very popular is Kijiji in Germany, France and UK. As a international company ebay get a very big growthrate outside the US with Kijiji Europe.

  43. puh-lease

    February 15th, 2008 at 6:59 am

    kijiji functionality is sweet and craig is somewhat of a turd, but in sf & nyc, craigslist reigns supreme. sure, it’s a haven for whackjobs, but when i’ve needed to sell furniture and snowboard equipment in both markets, kijiji was a complete waste of time.

  44. Free. but ...

    February 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Free sites like craigslist and Kijiji are ok — but because they are free you have to put up with thousands of “spam” ads or ads that are fraudulent. And because every man and his dog can post to these sites, any ad you put up is likely visible for only a day or so before it is pushed so far down the list you fall off the bit bucket …

    I think sites that charge a nominal fee to post, are ad free, and review ads and keep the spammers away are well worth it, ie: http://www.rentboard.ca for apartments and rentals in Canada. I had way better response from their site then I did with my “free” ad on Kijiji.

  45. Nice OLX

    February 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am

    I like much more OLX.
    Its name is easier to remember and they are doing great in many countries.

    I think they started like a year ago, so I think we’ll see much more from them in the following months.

    Check it at http://www.olx.com

    On the footer of the page you can choose from many countries and languages.

  46. Juanito

    February 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am

    I live in Spain and use Adoos to buy and sell my stuff - it works great!!

    They are launching globally - and seem to be doing well in France, Italy. I have checked out their US site, and they really have worked hard on tailoring the product to the market - using local language, and getting the geography right.

    This is why craigslist has failed abroad - they have not made the effort to localise.

    Companies like Adoos have - which is why I think that they are really well prepared to make it big in the US.

    Check it out: http:// http://www.adoos.com

  47. Worldly

    February 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    I have it on good authority that, phonetically, “kijiji” means “small boy’s penis” in Chinese. I’m not even kidding.

  48. Todd Lucier

    February 15th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    I just heard about this site last week and thought it looked a little more fun than Craigslist… come on, isn’t it time for a facelift on that site… I know it’s simply classifieds, but Kijiji’s bright colours are nice. I’ve got to use it to see how it’s user base grows. Success will be determined by the user experience… bright colours won’t overshadow a poor lead generation rate.

  49. fizetés és állás

    February 16th, 2008 at 3:53 am

    kijiji is looking much better than craigslist and easy to use as well

  50. randomwalker

    February 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am

    There are a lot of things I don’t like about craigslist but there’s no way I’m ever visiting this site until they change their name.

  51. Marc

    February 16th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Relax Poindexter,

    Their traffic has taken off for one reason and one reason only. They are advertising out the ass on Adwords. Otherwise, they are failing miserably in the U.S. since soft launch last year. They do OK in a few other countries like Canada and they have other properties like Gumtree do well in english speaking non-US markets like UK, AUS, NZ, SA. They bought out Loquo in Spain which still dominates Spain. They have a few other properties as well.

    But trust me dude, they have tried and tried and still getting no traction in the U.S. You are looking at traffic they are paying a high price for and not converting into returning visitors for the most part.

  52. Micky

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am

    In response to post #47:
    Very funny. LOL. What Chinese dialect? Cantonese or Mandarin? Very funny.

    In response to post #33:
    Good point. What about taking a look at http://Loudheart.com? It is young and currently serving audience in the US, includes all cities and counties in NY.

    In response to post #44:
    “any ad you put up is likely visible for only a day or so before it is pushed so far down the list you fall off the bit bucket …”

    I know what you mean. Have you looked at the craglist for sale > cars+trucks category? You don’t have to wait a day to see your ad away at the bottom. Sellers that have a long list of merchandise to advertise loves craigslist because they hire programmers to write script to automate the data entries. Hence, spam spam spam spam.

    I like CL because it is fast and simple. Perhaps, too simple.

  53. MercadoSite.com

    February 18th, 2008 at 6:06 am

    Hi we are Dutch but our website http://www.MercadoSite.com is made for Spain and Portugal,

    In Holland is a classified advert website called Marktplaats that was our example.
    They have 63.000.000 visitors a month, in a small country as Holland with a population from only 16.000.000 people.
    6.300.000 people look 13,5 times a month on the site to buy or sell their articles.
    A site like this has changed the thinking of a whole population from a recycling to recelling population.
    Why is this website not mentioned in your article ?

    Holland is much more advanced in developing advert sites than other countries in the world.
    Our own site goes even further because we translate adverts in 6 other languages

  54. Melanie

    February 18th, 2008 at 10:16 am

    How about a site that pays YOU simply for listing your classifieds? That’s what http://www.Listasaurus.com does…and we are one of the first classifieds sites worldwide to feature VIDEO CLASSIFIEDS…how’s that for something new and exciting?

    And what better way to showcase your product, service or business than by using full sight, sound and motion?

    Some of you mention that you want something nicer looking that is more fun…then you should also love our mascot, Listie, as well as our Mystery Contest!

    Would love to hear feedback and suggestions…oh, and we’re adding auctions soon, which will make us the first video auctions site out there!

    Start getting paid to list today on http://www.Listasaurus.com!

  55. MercadoSite.com

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    Sorry Melanie http://www.MercadoSite.com has this for four years already.

  56. OnlyEbay

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    In fact, EBAY classifieds are the global leaders.

    http://onlyebay.blogspot.com/2.....asses.html

  57. Tracy Allison Altman

    February 20th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Oy, they allow people to sell dogs and cats on that site. They should stop.

  58. Classifieds

    March 4th, 2008 at 1:20 am

    It is because they are spending a crazy amount on advertising! They also come up for everything in google because of their crazy Page Rank. Why do the big companies have trouble at all? If I had what they had to start a new project I’d kill the competition too! It’s like they just looked at what is wrong with craigslist, took a look at their ebay sites and made it the seo power house.

  59. bobby

    March 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    As a college student, I like http://barefootstudent.com, kind of like craigslist in that it is simple and easy to use but just for college students and job posters…

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