July 3rd, 2007
Ebay Free Classified Ad Site Kijiji Is Another Huge Blow To Newspapers
Poor newspapers. Their cash cow service, classified ads, is probably about to break a record for facing more competition from free services than any other in the history of paid services. Faceboook recently piled on to the Craigslist disruption of the newspaper classified market with a free classifieds marketplace. Now eBay has launched a free classified site call Kijiji in 220 U.S. cities:
Kijiji, a site eBay has operated overseas for two years, is now available in about 220 cities across the United States, spokesman Hani Durzy, said Tuesday.
“We’re targeting young people and young families looking for bargains locally,” Durzy said. “For now it’s a free service and our focus is on building the user experience.”
So how much additional havoc will Kijiji wreak on the newspaper classified business? All the talk around the announcement is about Kijiji competing with Craigslist, rather than newspapers, since a free product vs. paid product is a less interesting competition (such as it is).
EBay knows a thing or two about connecting buyers and sellers online. And it so happens that eBay has had a seat on the board of Craigslist since eBay bought a 25 percent stake in 2004.
So far, there aren’t many ads on Kijiji — but I’m sure many newspaper classified advertisers (particularly those fond of eBay) will discover it soon enough.
Ouch.
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There?s been quite a bit of talk lately about how Newspapers are dinosaurs and just don?t get it. Well, it seems that the UK tabloid newspapers do get the music industry better than the music industry retailers. … Comment on Ebay Free Classified Ad Site Kijiji Is Another Huge … Newspapers hurt themselves years ago by offering a clunky, unweb-like way of offering classifieds online, and then did all kinds of things to abuse or disappoint online customers. But the lose of classified revenue is a fair more
+ Discussion: Don Dodge on The Next …, Download Squad, Profy.Com, HipMojo.com, Publishing 2.0, Mark Evans, David Dalka, Business Week, mathewingram.com/work, TechSpot News and Jeffrey McManus
ebay? kijiji ???? launch??. ?? 2004? craigslist? 25% share? ??? ebay? kijiji? 2? ?? ?? ? ?? ??????? ??? ???? craigslist? ??? ?? ?? ????. ??? offline????? ? ?????
says James Rutherford, executive vice president and managing director at VSS. More: The Financial Times has a news story on the VSS study while WatchMojo suggests the forecasts are probably too aggressive. Scott Karp had some interesting insights on Kijiji’s expansion plans earlier this month. Share This [IMG][IMG] [IMG]
is benefits of announcements classifies to you on the Internet? … 3) announcements classify you of (in newspapers they have been passe for the years, thanks to the Internet. Hour the classifieds static they could be on their escape on the web. Ebay Free Classified Ad Site Kijiji Is Another Huge Blow To Newspapers their service of the cow of cash, announcements classifies to you, is probably approximately breaking off an annotation for faces it of the more competition from the free services that whichever other in the history of the services paid. Recently
Newspapers have location, pro content, and user trust. If they can leverage those assets they can survive.
[…] more, check out Mathew Ingram and Scott Karp, who contends Kijiji’s expansion is yet another blow to newspapers. As well, here’s a […]
Kijiji Falls Short…
As much as I’d like to see some things replace the aging Craiglist., the US version of Kijiji 1.0, announced yesterday, isn’t it.
There are too many things to list from a user standpoint, here are just a few:
1) No resume posting section …
While this is obviously more competition for newspapers, it’s hardly a “huge blow.”
Craigslist already offers free ads; how much freer will Kijiji be? Will ads that were in newspapers and didn’t go to free Craigslist now decide to go to Kijiji for some reason?
The competition is between free and paid/premium, and each has some advantages.
For many purposes (the young families eBay mentions in its announcement, for example) free ads may be just right. If I have a sofa to sell and can wait a while, or want a used Jeep but not urgently, I’d use them. Many newspapers also offer free classifieds (Newmark talks of them as “community;” we think of them as traffic builders) in many categories.
For employers with mission-critical jobs to fill — hospitals, lawyers, governments — the imprecision, overlap, fraud and utility of free ads can literally prove “too expensive.” Ads that are constrained by cost have less fraud, more focus and faster response.
It’s all about the value proposition, which of course changes all the time.
Howard,
I don’t disagree with any of the value propositions you’ve articulated for newspaper classified vs. Craigslist. These are what keep the newspaper classified business alive, shrinking though it may be.
You’re also correct that Kijiji isn’t any “freerer” than Craigslists. But free is of course a commodity, and in competition over a commodity, the focus is on brand, i.e. the illusion of differentiation.
Craigslist may be too wild west for a lot of people, but some of those people know, have used, and have reason to trust eBay — eBay is a very well established brand for trusted buying and selling online. If the eBay brand promotes Kijiji, it does have the potential to shake a few more people loose from using newspapers classifieds.
Also keep in mind it’s not just about the sellers — it’s about where the buyers are. If through eBaby promotion Kijiji attracts the attention of some people who never thought to buy from Craigslist, that’s a drain on attention to newspaper ads.
This is a “huge blow” not because it’s going to make the newspaper classified business shrink a lot fast but because it’s probably going to make it shrink a little bit faster. And many newspapers can ill afford even marginal movement in the wrong direction.
And even if this doesn’t happen, newspapers will have to work that much harder to retain their business.
(One thing I don’t agree with is your characterization that free ads are slower — stuff on Craigslist disappears fast, which you see if you monitor a particular category you’re in the market for.)
Any blow feels huge at this point, given the state of the business.
[…] But now that Facebook and eBay have recently entered the online classified ads business, it is becoming much more difficult for newspapers rationalize the threat away. Both are companies which have had national success, and eBay is a proven, solid money maker. But the really new twist is that both can combine information collected from their base businesses with that of their new classified ads businesses to yield an all-new way to generate profits from classifieds that is unavailable to newspapers. Specifically, Facebook can create targeted advertising opportunities for advertisers by combining their classifieds info on who bought and sold what with their demographic and lifestyle info collected from Facebook. eBay can similarly develop targeted advertising opportunities by creating a superior database of buyers and sellers that combines their classifieds and eBay purchase data. So, if tech firms have suddenly decided that the Internet classifieds business looks less like a speculative loss leader and more like a big potential area for profits, newspapers may have to adjust to running their operations with 30-40% less revenue. (Hat tips: Lost Remote, Scott Karp). […]
Craigslist hasn’t hurt newspapers as much as some people assume, and it hasn’t hurt newspapers because ads are free.
Newspapers hurt themselves years ago by offering a clunky, unweb-like way of offering classifieds online, and then did all kinds of things to abuse or disappoint online customers.
But the lose of classified revenue is a fair more complex issue than just paid vs. free, or craigslist vs. newspapers. It’s all the competition and changing demographics of a turbulent media environment.
I’m with Howard Weaver on this one — this isn’t a “huge blow.” It’s just one more cut.
Newspapers may yet die a death of a thousand cuts, but the fight isn’t over yet.
Howard O,
I think you’re absolutely right that Craigslist v. Newspapers may be more about user experience for buyers and sellers and less about free vs. paid, i.e. many Craigslist users would pay for Craigslist rather than pay for newspapers.
But I still disagree on the “cut” vs. “blow”:
First, if Kijiji were just some random startup, it could easily be written off. But eBay has been arguably more successful than any other company at connecting buyers and sellers online — “huge blow” was more my reaction to eBay getting into the game, not the emergence of another free classified site.
Second, I suspect there are some — by no means all, much a majority — newspapers that are already at the point where another significant cut turn out to be a “huge blow.”
That all said, certainly the fight isn’t over yet — but it does keep getting harder.
[…] Which make as much damn sense as a website called Kijiji - or as Jason from webomatica said in a comment to my previous post - “which is basically the website my cat goes to when he steps on the keyboard“. The point being that this mishmash of letters is the name that eBay has hung like an albatross around the neck of their foray into the land of Craigslist of free classified ads. […]
[…] It has to stink to be in print media right about now. eBay’s new venture (Kijiji.com) into online classifieds not only is a broadside to the proletariat movement of Craig’s List, it’s yet another enormous competitor for local newspapers. Check out Publishing 2.0’s great coverage here. […]
Here in India while searching for a house maid I posted a message at Kijiji and I instantly got a few responses. This could have never happened with conventional newspaper classified (although I’m not sure about the classified published on their online versions where responses can be instant).
Is it just being launched in the US? In India people have been using Kijiji for months now I think, and I’ve seen it in TV commercials if I’m not mixing it with some other service.
BTW FWIW, it’s “wreak havoc” not “wreck havok”.
More than anything else, we should rue the demise of copy editing.
j.a.m.,
Copy editing isn’t dead — it’s just distributed. Thanks for your contribution.
[…] Scott Karp had some interesting insights on Kijiji’s expansion plans earlier this […]
I thought the domain name selection was a bit odd for classified ads site, but eBay has a strong following, credibility, and branding.
Per compete.com, kijiji had about 1.65 million visitors in Nov 07 compared to Nov 06 where they hovered around zero. Their growth trend appears strong.