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... 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