eBay launches craigslist competitor
eBay formally launched the US version of Kijiji which is a free online classified advertising website, very similar to craigslist, reported PC World.
Kijiji could become a major competitor for craigslist, as it is a free online classifieds website mirroring craigslist in many areas. After only a few seconds, I realized that the usability and features of Kijiji were far better than craigslist in many areas. It offers a cleaner look, and better categorization and the site itself is much faster that craigslist. Currently it is somewhat limited in the cities that ads can be placed in, but I imagine that these will widen once more people start using the service.
eBay currently owns 25% of craigslist which may have played some role in eBay’s lack of public announcement of Kijiji, or even the lack of placing an eBay logo on the Kijiji website. Personally, I think that there will still need to be a better marketing campaign to kick this thing off. But a company with as much money as eBay definitely has the funds that could make it go somewhere. Just a few strategic links on the ebay.com would probably be a good start.
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Whenever a giant like eBay launches anything, I think it has the potential to go far. Saying that, though, Craigslist’s immense popularity would be pretty hard to curtail. Although Craigslist is not exactly the easiest or best site to use, you can’t argue with its wide reach. Me thinks eBay has their work cut out for them.
A more sinister thought might be that perhaps eBay is using Kijiji to test out certain new features to see whether it’ll be accepted well by the public before pushing it to CraigsList… hehehe.
Charles Tang
Shopping Cart Software
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