Kijiji vs. Craigslist

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Web services

Kijiji vs. Craigslist

by Chris Gilmer Jul 4th 2007

Craigslist is the number one online classified location, after all, they pioneered it. Now there's a new kid on the block, and its owned by eBay.

Craigslist, founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark, now serves over 5 billion page view per month, giving it a 34th place rank among worldwide web sites. However, eBay has been operating a similar service called Kijiji in Europe for over two years with some success, so it has begun branching out to the rest of the world. The bargain site will now be available in 220 cities across the US and targeted at young people and families looking for bargains. eBay might own a 25% stake in Craigslist, but that's not making Newmark sweat one bit.

Kijiji still does not have the content necessary to beat out Craigslist, but with some slow and steady work you never know. Craigslist does have a strong brand following, and we're hard-pressed to think users of that site would ever switch.

[via cnet]

Tags: classifieds, craigslist, kijiji, online

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

jafi said 1:53PM on 7-04-2007

I tried to post a car for sale ad to Kijiji today.
I was unsuccessful because Kijiji kept telling me I had "banned words". Try as I might I could not figure out what banned word I had used in the ad text and the posting process did do anything helpful like highlight the problematic word or phrase.

I've emailed them, no reply yet. Craigslist is much easier to post on at present and people are not going to be willing to spend alot of time trying to figure out if some innocuous phrase is an issue for the censors (I keep thinking of the old banning the word breast means you couldn't say chicken breat kind of idiocy).

Jhon said 2:11PM on 7-04-2007

see http://hotshadow.com/

Gary Shaffer said 3:51PM on 7-04-2007

LiveDeal is much better than either of these. Just will take a while for content.

Omar Ismail said 5:16PM on 7-04-2007

Kijiji has been around in Canada for a while now, and here it's actually pretty sweet. Depending on what area you're in Kijiji is actually better than Craigslist. Overall I don't think users really have to switch, if Kijiji is good then people will just use both. That's what I do.

Kani Seth said 1:10PM on 7-05-2007

Down with Kijiji! Actually I never heard of the site before, but since its owned by the evil profiteers-eBay Inc., down with them!

Kani Seth said 1:25PM on 7-05-2007

Down with Kijiji! Actually I never heard of the site before, but since its owned by the evil profiteers-eBay Inc., down with them!

Kate said 1:09AM on 7-06-2007

I just tried to post an ad for saxophone lessons and got hit with the "banned words" thing too. What word could I possibly be using in a music lessons ad that should be "banned?" I can understand banning swear words maybe, but seriously what the hell?!?!?! They keep this up they'll never make it up against CraigsList!

Colin said 12:20AM on 7-07-2007

As Omar said, Kijiji has been in Canada for some time. Locally, it's useless; no one ever posts to it. Of course, locally, Craigslist is useless too. I live in a fairly small city served by usedcanada.com, and this is apparently where everyone goes.

Barry said 11:39AM on 7-07-2007

Craigslist Flagging & Removal of ads is what really sucks. Craig Newmark may say he's all for net neutrality yadi yadi ya but when your political views are flagged and removed from the "Politics" category it sure makes you wonder.

The Bush Wants to Kill Our Kids posts remain up there but any other views are flagged and removed by the San Francisco Surrender Monkeys bowing down and kissing the boots of America's enemies.

For a clear example of what I mean go to http://www.freewebs.com/barry34785/theflaggedposts.htm to see the posts. Then ask yourself do you really want to support these people? They are represented by Nancy Pelosi for God's Sake.

I just posted an ad at Kijiji and had zero problems. Of course, being that it is run by capitalists at eBay you should expect it to work. Nothing wrong with capitalism, people don't work for free, do you work for free?

jasmin ras said 3:42PM on 7-10-2007

http://idateher.com the black list for players on craigslist

Paul Woodhouse said 12:32PM on 7-16-2007

Do people use Craigslist because of the brand or because it's easy to use and free?

Are the same people not going to list the same kind of thing on Kijiji as they currently do on Craigslist?

You might just be able to ask a question or two of one of eBay's higher-ups about it all at the following if you're interested:

http://www.marketingconference.org/blog/2007/07/11/and-the-gloves-are-most-definitely-off/

michael said 10:59AM on 7-26-2007

stop complaining! ITS FREE!

bartender05602000 said 1:03AM on 8-03-2007

I found the Kijiji site by complete accident. Listed my house for rent, and had a reply within 3 hours... and six more replies within a couple of days. Got the house rented quickly. Not bad,, considering the house was empty for 3 months! Tried craigslist, never got one response! Kudos to you Kijiji!!!

toby said 2:48AM on 8-13-2007

what a coincidence (your recent post) i just bought a craigslist posting tool at http://www.craygo.com

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