eBay's Kijiji Talks Smack About Craigslist: "We'll Be #1 in the U.S."

Why can’t brothers and sisters just get along? As I noted earlier this month, eBay’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) free classifieds site Kijiji is coming on strong since its launch in the U.S. last summer. Of course, eBay owns 25 percent of Craigslist, but since the other 75 percent is not for sale, eBay is putting all of its eggs into Kijiji and taking Craigslist head on.

In January, Kijiji had 2.3 million U.S. visitors, which made it the sixth largest classifieds site in the U.S., according to comScore. In six months, Kijiji has grown to be about ten percent the size of Craigslist (which had 26.7 million unique visitors in the U.S.). Worldwide, the numbers are much closer. Kijiji had 21.6 million visitors in January, compared to Craigslist’s 27.8 million.

Yesterday, Jacob Aqraou stopped by my office. He is the eBay executive who runs Kijiji and eBay’s other classifieds sites around the world (including Marketplaats in the Netherlands, Loquo in Spain, and Gumtree in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and Poland). All told, Kijiji operates sites across 700 cities in 20 countries. But Aqraou was pretty clear about who he wants to kill:

We play to win. We will win in the U.S. Six months in, the U.S. is the best launch we have had and we have not put any money into it. This year we will make significant inroads. And we will be No. 1 in the U.S.

He is not claiming that he will pass Craigslist this year, but he does not strike me as a patient man. Why did eBay launch Kijiji in the first place back in 2005? Says Aqraou:

We did not believe Craigslist was going to be successful internationally with an English-only site. Craigslist has had zero localization. It is all English, run out of San Francisco.

And that is not his only problem with Craigslist. He contends that the bare-bones site has failed to evolve:

They went lean and that allowed them to be early when there was no revenue. The site still looks the same as it did 12 years ago. Users expect more. The bar goes up in terms of user interface, trust, and safety. If you stay still, you get run over.

Now, there is revenue—advertising. And that is bringing the sharks into Craigslist’s once-friendly, non-profit waters. Kijiji is eBay’s fastest growing business. Revenues worldwide grew 104 percent last quarter (from what base, eBay will not say). Expect to see a big marketing push this year on eBay’s part to drive traffic to Kijiji in the U.S. Fees for featuring items, improvements to the site’s navigation, and tools for easier listings are also coming soon.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful a classifieds site is if you cannot find anything there. In terms of the sheer number of listings and things you can find on each site—the single most important factor for success—Kijiji still has a long way to go to catch up with Craigslist. But Aqraou does have a point about Craigslist’s user interface. Searching for stuff is hard. You can’t sort by price. And there are no images in the results pages (only on individual item pages).

Does Craig Newmark have anything to worry about, or is Aqroau just talking smack?

Here is Kijiji:

And here is Craigslist:

Comments

[Kris Tuttle:]

CL is a dud in foreign places. I think it's been proven that the farther you get from SF the less well it works. In most major US cities it's a crowd pleaser but get outside the US and the locations are fairly devoid of activity. Those places need the service just the same and CL hasn't cut it. The Kijiji guys probably have more of an opportunity than I would have thought.

2008 Feb 28 03:31 AM

[Rhodomontade:]

One basic rule of internet marketing - have a URL people can type and remember. Kijijji? Kijiji? Kiiji? Kijjiji? There is no visual, and hence mental, difference between these sloppy and meaningless incoherent assemblages of letters that stand together in the middle of the alphabet.

And it has no audio cognate. If I tell you in person, in a restaurant or over the phone: "Oh yeah, just go to kijiji.com and give away your old couch," you will go home and type "kageegee" or "Kuhjeegee" or a million other possibilities.

How many thousands of dollars did these idiots pay to a branding agency and which one for this crap name? Because it looks like they farmed out the job to an intern.

2008 Feb 28 03:47 AM

[DrMark27:]

Kijiji brings to mind "XR4TI." Hopefully it is a better outcome.

2008 Feb 28 08:26 AM

[-noname-:]

I find it humorous that ebay continues to begin businesses with the flea market seller and and then slits their throats after they become successful...

They are going to fail...

You can only lie so much before you begin to get found out...

BOYCOTT EBAY FOREVER!!

2008 Feb 28 02:01 PM

[oldtxgal:]

Ebay is in big trouble. Bad executive decisions with rate hikes trotted out and spun as reductions, as well as changes in feedback, have alienated the seller base. Now the message boards are ablaze with very plausible accusations that ebay inflated the listing numbers with over a million bogus listings... launched coincidentally at the same time as the latest widespread boycott. Ebay has given very vague answers... no real explanation.

The comments of the kijiji exec, slamming the "look" of Craig's List illustrates the ebay mindset. Duh, users don't give a tinkers darn about the look of the site. Users like simplicity and familiarity. I hated the routing "junking up" of eBay pages. Been a seller for nearly 10 years, and know whereof I speak.

The eBay core is splintering over the most recent changes. Sellers are abandoning ship in astonishing numbers. Doesn't make any difference how eBay manipulated the listing numbers, or how they try to spin their decisions.... my sales and traffic is down dramatically, suggesting a hemorrage in the user base. Odds are there's nothing Donohue can do to stem the flow at this point.

Too darned bad. Craig's list need not fear kijiji. There's so much mistrust and outright hostility toward eBay, sellers and customers will likely avoid the start up.

2008 Mar 03 03:53 PM

[Annu:]

Kijiji would definitely earn a lot of accoaldes is it manages to come even close to being CL. No matter how ugly CL looks, it will not be easy to beat.

2008 Mar 19 07:49 AM

[User 177252:]

ebay ran me off with high prices and lots of process. I gladly prefer craigs list with its simplicty. Ebay just wants more and more money, while CL actually wants to help people and provide a great website.

2008 Apr 12 03:09 PM

[rahul:]

though Kijiji had been launched in US but it is still not a user-friendly site. It takes lots of time n effort to find and contact a desired buyer or seller...for this reason i prefer to use sites like clickindia.com or sysindia.com as they provide a excellent service..

2008 May 21 04:36 AM

[Rachna Verma:]

Kijiji is good classified portal where u buy and sell almost everything...
it is among my mostly used classified sities...
Other website which i generally use are clickindia.com or sysindia.com..

2008 May 23 02:20 AM

[afansaad:]

i think no one can beat craigslist. It is the oldest, simplest and the best site in us. Even though there are new classifieds sites that are coming up lately like hindlist.com, which is a new free classified site,but i still say that it is quite a new one and has some time to be the first in all as it has wide sections to post in. But it needs more users and time will come slowly and steadily. yess in conclusion hindlist.com is also a nice and reliable site to post ads.

2008 Oct 20 08:55 AM

[Directoy:]

Thats a long round to go my Friend!
Craislist Rocq!

2008 Nov 02 05:01 PM

[afansaad:]

I dont understand why kijiji and craigslist are fighting. After all all sites have their share in market. There are other websites like adpost.com and hindlist.com. Its very important to give user satisfaction then users will decide which one is best.

Apr 17 12:37 PM

[afansaad:]

I dont understand why kijiji and craigslist are fighting. After all web is for all. If they fight like this then users may move on to other classified sites like adpost.com and hindlist.com. I suggest them to open it on users choice as they are the best choosers.

Apr 17 12:43 PM

[PVA Mommy:]

I tried Kijiji but the traffic just wasn't there. Craigslist has all the traffic... for now.

You wouldn't believe how many craigslist pvas that I used to buy that kept dying... I found this eBook and now I make my own. I got it from PVAeBook.com

It's been working so far... so email me if you want to but accounts, lol :)

Apr 28 01:23 AM

[sunidhi:]

I use Kijiji.com (now quikr) for advertising apartments for my clients, however often i had to c twice to confirm the spelling for same. Now its much easier. I also use other sites like meramaal.com and www.click.in for good responses.

Aug 28 09:31 AM

[User 493508:]

I used Craigslist. and its good. well there is one more fast growing classified site targeting india and usa :

BharatClick.com

Sep 30 01:16 AM