Kijiji, or "village" in Swahili, is a venture undertaken by eBay through its New Ventures Group "to bri... More >>

Kijiji, or "village" in Swahili, is a venture undertaken by eBay through its New Ventures Group "to bring a sense of community that is lacking in other local classified sites." Since its inception in 2005, Kijiji has expanded to cover some 1000 cities and localities in 26 countries, launching in the United States fairly recently, in 2007.<br /> <br /> With a friendlier and more developed interface than the primary incumbent in the online classified ads segment, Craigslist, Kijiji seeks to engage users on a more personal level, creating a connection with user and leading to increased customer retention and use.<br /> <br /> Revenue is generated through pay-for-premium services: sponsored ads, banner ads, the ability to embed outbound links, among other features. While the United States site has yet to implement many of these fees, the UK site, for example, charges 25 pounds for a job listing. With revenues of $250 million for Q3 of 2008, Kijiji dwarfs competitor Craigslist at a projected $80 million for fiscal 2008.<br /> <br /> eBay executive Jacob Aqraou, who oversees Kijiji, said that "the U.S. is the best launch we have had and we have not put any money into it," and commented about competitor Craigslist, stating that "[Craigslist] 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." His words have obviously implications about Kijiji's overall strategy with regards to Craiglist, namely the offering of a superior platform and increasing customer engagement.<br /> <br /> Craigslist certainly has enjoyed its status as the dominant and entrenched incumbant, but consumers might be seeking more than what it has to offer, and Kijiji is looking to build upon that opportunity. Look for Kijiji to expand and become one of eBay's marques as its both its visibility and revenues grow.<br /> <br><span class="add_review">On 12/26/2008, Jonathan added:</span><br> An overly hasty glance at compete.com without an understanding of the metrics will show that Craigslist supposedly leads Kijiji in unique pages views by a large margin. However, sites as compete.com and quantcast.com only provide usage statistics for users in the United States.<br /> <br /> Kijiji has pursued its strategy of expanding outside of the United States where Craigslist has been lacking, and is aggressively acquiring leading online classifieds sites of other nationalities as GumTree (UK), OpusForum.net (Germany), LoQUo (Spain) and Marktplaats (Netherlands), among others. Thus, it would be myopic to judge the success of Kijiji based solely upon metrics that only factor in domestic usage, compounded by the fact that Kijiji is a relatively recent entrant into a market with an extremely high concentration ratio from a domestic standpoint.<br /> <br /> Kijiji has done well with its growth strategy, outperforming Craiglist in many non-United States localities, often by large margins. According to Alexa (late Dec. 2008), where Craigslist is the 60th most popular site in Canada, Kijiji Canada is the 12th. Where Craigslist is the 473rd most popular site in the United Kingdom, GumTree (Kijiji's UK site) is 32nd. In the Netherlands, where Craigslist has little real presence, Kijiji's acquisition Marktplaats is the 8th ranked site. In fact, Erick Schonfeld of SeekingAlpha states that in January of 2008, while Kijiji trailed Craigslist heavily in the United States, worldwide, Kijiji had some 21.6 million users compared to Craigslist's 27.8 million.<br /> <br /> Moreover, a look at fundamentals suggests that Kijiji is already outperforming Craigslist as a for-profit business. As noted previously, financial disclosures by parent company eBay have put Kijiji's 2008 Q3 revenues at $250 million, compared to Craigslist's paltry estimated earnings of $80 million for the entire year. For an online service whose only expenses are likely to be administrative and hosting costs, Kijiji also has an advantage from the fact that eBay already has an expansive hosting platform and support group that Kijiji is able to tap into at reduced costs and thus benefit from operational efficiencies of scale – something Craigslist cannot do. Additionally, the desire for profits drive innovation, and when Craigslist isn't trying to make money and doesn't develop the platform, somebody else will.<br /> <br /> It would be myopic and foolhardy to write off Kijiji so early, especially given the backing behind the venture. eBay, with its deep pockets, experienced management teams no stranger to internet economics, and possible operational synergies with existing product offerings, has a lot to gain if Kijiji succeeds. << Less

Kijiji will go down as another sad and pathetic attempt by eBay to stay current and relevant. And it will ultimately fa... More >>

Kijiji will go down as another sad and pathetic attempt by eBay to stay current and relevant. And it will ultimately fail. As Jonathan rightly points out in his review, it is a better looking site which is more \'web2.0\' than Craigslist. But, unfortunately, eBays application of lipstick to Kijiji\'s front-end doesn\'t do anything to change the fact that this service is a loser. <br /> <br />eBay\'s motivation to start Kijiji appears to be more driven by ego than a desire to build a solid business. eBay owns a stake of Craigslist and despite their insistence and attempts to influence Craiglist\'s direction, CL remains adamantly anti-profit/revenue maximization. And so it appears that Kijiji was an attempt by Goliath (eBay to be clear) to show David (CL) what happens when you mess with a $17B market cap (as of 12/25/08) giant. Unfortunately, eBay and Kijiji are the ones being taught a lesson. <br /> <br />The traffic stats available on Chubby per compete.com show how bad Kijiji is getting hammered. In Nov, Craiglist had 40.5 million visitors to Kijiji\'s 2.5 million. Adding insult to injury, Craiglist\'s traffic has grown 47% over the last year vs Kijiji\'s 50% growth. That is 47% growth on a much larger base of visitors - one that is several orders of magnitude larger than Kijiji\'s. <br /> <br />eBay, a once great web company, seems to have fallen prey to the idea that they can just use their scale and loose connections to their brand to make new businesses successful. And Kijiji, absent some game-changer, is a pig with lipstick that unfortunately is on its way to the slaughterhouse. <br /> <br /><span class=\'add_review\'>On 03/01/2009, Amy added:</span> <br />Today\'s reported news that Kijiji is trying to rebrand itself as \"eBay Classifieds\" seems to be further proof of the lack of relevance of Kijiji and them taking trivial and immaterial measures to become relevant. While an association with eBay might help since people have heard of eBay and it\'s much easier to spell than Kijiji. (Yes - that\'s 3 i\'s and 2 j\'s) <br /> <br />Erick Schonfeld sums this up best at the end of his TechCrunch post where he writes \"Kijiji is going to need more than a name change to challenge Craigslist.\" This is just eBay sloppily applying lipstick on a pig. Bye bye Kijiji. <br /> <br />The TC post about the \'rebranding\' is here: <a href=\'http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/28/kijiji-isnt-kutting-it-how-about-ebay-classifieds/\'>http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/28/kijiji-isnt-kutting-it-how-about-ebay-classifieds/</a>; << Less

Kijiji, eBay's newest venture, attempts to improve and expand on what Craigslist has already successfully implemented. K... More >>

Kijiji, eBay's newest venture, attempts to improve and expand on what Craigslist has already successfully implemented. Kijiji is a user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, classified ads website with a much more professional feel than the current leader, Craigslist. If we simply take a look at the website itself, one would agree that it has been intelligently designed and users have been flocking to use it. Kijiji has a better looking interface which may embed more confidence in users as they attempt to contact individuals selling used products; but Craigslist still seems to have more users and continues to dominate this sector of the market, especially within the US.<br /> <br /> Kijiji is attempting a more revenue-oriented twist of what Craigslist has done, and is proving to be more successful than I had expected. It has expanded greatly outside of the US, an area in which Craigslist hasn't been much of a competition. By no means do I believe that Kijiji will replace today's Craigslist, for Craigslist still has several factors in its favor; but I do believe Kijiji will continue to gain popularity and will work side-by-side with Craigslist to present users with a platform on which to sell, buy, and inquire about jobs, products, and services. <br /> <br /> Kijiji is being backed by eBays pockets and resources, which will surely drive it to success, but I don't see it appealing to all of the same consumers that have been hooked on Craigslist. Craigslist will maintain a strong user base with its simplicity and obvious tenure and as Kijiji enters the scene, both Craigslist and Kijiji will gain popularity. << Less

Sometime I read someone congratulating ebay on its classifieds business trend mentioning it goes in line with its core b... More >>

Sometime I read someone congratulating ebay on its classifieds business trend mentioning it goes in line with its core business as opposed to going after phone companies.<br /> <br /> I disagree with that opinion. The auction commission(Ebay) is a buy and sell business model.Classifieds is not Buy & Sell activity for the company;it is Advertising.In that regard,Kijiji is in competition with Google itself.<br /> <br /> The idea of monopolizing the classifieds market by going after craiglist is naive and short-sighted.If ebay bought craiglist,a huge exodus will follow to any current or emerging alternative out there.<br /> <br /> Kijiji\'s competion will not be just coming from craiglist side but from <br /> a multitude of recession-emerging parasites classifieds websites that will further speed its downfall.<br /> <br /> \"We play to win\" said someone from ebay.<br /> <br /> Win what ? The guy(Craig Newmart) is offering the service for near free<br /> <br /> And Who plays to lose?<br /> <br /> Internet Users have long perceived classifieds as the \"Internet Bonus\" to the average user. <br /> It has come to be sterotypically perceived as Free .And will remain so.<br /> The French site Annonces spent years trying to monetize this damn thing without success.And there has been thousands of similar experiences. As if Ebay never made a simple market research(which confirmed the other commentator\'s point that they did it more out of revenge).<br /> <br /> Kijiji will eventually go down as a loser and ebay should try to stop the bleeding early and remove this lame sheep from the market before it is badly wounded and its malaise spread to ebay itself. << Less