Can eBay Capitalize on Kijiji's Potential?

With each passing month, eBay's Kijiji service continues to gain users at an unprecedented rate. Kijiji New York alone has over 22,000 ads. What is impressive is that Kijiji's ads last one week and there is a limit of 25 ads per person. Thus, the majority of ads are not from spammers. Craigslist, possibly feeling the heat, has extended their ads to last 30 plus days. Additionally Craigslist is so cluttered that one gets lost visiting the site.

Many people still do not even know that Kijiji exists as advertising has been limited. However, Kijiji's clean interface and easy to use map make it a prime favorite to overtake Craigslist in the not too distant future. Now if only eBay can make money from the site. Note to eBay: Please at least start putting some display advertising on the site. If you wait too long, there will be too many users and we will start hearing the crying whining pains of "We will boycott Kijiji if ads appear." eBay is allocating a lot of resources to Kijiji. One can also say that eBay's 25% investment in Kijiji was used to learn the classified trade. Thus Ebay needs to monetize the site and soon.

Comments

[Burlcouch:]

Well, I use Kijiji, I have over 160 items on my Kijiji Account, and eBay does have ads at the bottom of each of the 160 + classified ads currently running. I am getting results (sales) the items I have on Kijiji are items that didn't sell on eBay . Google has its buynsellcom.com, which is free, but, it allows users to purchase "Bold" and Googles Home Page "Feature Ads" on the sight. Kijiji is far superior than Craigslist

2008 Feb 24 03:38 PM

[twinsdad:]

suggested correction to the article: eBay owns 25% of Craigslist (not Kijiji, of which it owns 100%; it is a start-up group within eBay, Inc.)

2008 Feb 25 01:15 AM

[Toronto Fre...:]

The Classifieds model seems to mostly suit individuals and small businesses and to a lesser extent the 500 fortune companies
I use Nortad classifieds to post my free ads in toronto and there seems to be an ever increasing supply of free classifieds site small as they are but they offer alternatives in case ebay decides to monetize its classifieds service

Jun 15 01:39 PM