It's eBay Vs. Craiglist Now
Posted by: Rob Hof on July 03, 2007
Here everybody thought Craigslist was safe from an ever-expanding eBay by virtue of the latter’s 25% stake in the popular classified-ad service. No dice. Today, eBay quietly launched its heretofore international classifieds service Kijiji in 220 cities in the U.S. Given that eBay had said when it bought the Craigslist stake from an outside shareholder that it planned to learn a lot from the bare-bones site, and presumably did, this move doesn’t smell too awfully good. I haven’t talked with either company yet, but clearly Craigslist is getting some potent new competition. As well as Craigslist works, eBay’s no slouch, and I have to think there’s a lot of room to improve the experience of connecting local buyers and sellers. Competition will make it happen.
