It Could Take a Village to Beat Craigslist

August 8, 2007 on 2:21 pm | In new contenders | craig newmark, craigslist, ebay, facebook, garage sales, kijiji, web traffic

Craig Newmark refuses to sell out. But will a new rush of classified competition put his noncommercial Craigslist out of business?

Unlikely. But the rivals are fierce, and growing fast.

Enter the Web site with the foolish name: Kijiji, the eBay owned upstart that’s looking to take on Craig. Loosely translated, the Web site’s name means “village” in Swahili.

Launched in March 2005, Kijiji has experienced rapid growth: both in the locations they serve and in Web traffic.

Craigslist, however, has yet to buckle under the corporate-powered threat, maintaining their consistent #9 rating according to the WebReportr 100k.

Upon initial use it is clear that the eBay product utilizes a more modern looking Flash interface. Add in the fact that it is structured similarly to eBay and offers some nice features such as listing thumbnails and page counters - and you can almost see Craigslist getting erased away.

However, aside from 13 years of experience and users, Craigslist has two important elements on its side: many consider the brand refreshing due to its grassroots, lack of a profit approach. Also, they have a gazillion more listings than Kijiji. At the time of this writing, the New York City area boards have yet to crack 1,000 listings in any single category. Meanwhile, Craigslist can get close to 1,000 postings per day in certain categories.

While Craig has gathered approximately 450 cities in a little over a decade, Kijiji has taken Europe, Asia, Canada and now the U.S. by storm - serving over 220 American cities.

One is pretty but empty inside. The other might not be the best looker on the block, but she’s loaded with info. Will America give her time to grow? Track Kijiji’s progress by signing up for a free WebReportr trial today.

And even if Kijiji fails, Craig & Co. are hardly out of the woods yet.

Buy.com and Facebook just announced that they are teaming up to host online Garage Sales. These sales will allow users to sell items directly to others through their Facebook profile.

The downside is that Buy.com takes a flat 5% commission on completed sales. The plus is that you can have a smoother transaction by dealing with people you know or are connected to.

There’s a lot of money to be made on junk. Now when you’re selling grandma’s old dishes or that scratched up copy of Meet the Beatles, you’ll have more options than ever before.