eBay to dump StumbleUpon, expand classifieds

September 19, 2008

TechCrunch are reporting that eBay are to sell StumbleUpon, the website discovery service they bought in May 2007 for $75million. According to TechCrunch’s source, eBay have hired Deutsche Bank to find a buyer for the site.

Whether they’ll make their money back remains to be seen. Page views per visitor rose from an average 7 in 2007, to 19 in 2008, and registered SU users increased from 5m in April to 6m now: that last statistic is, of course, as meaningless as “registered eBay users”. Actual visitors to the site fell by around 70% from 4.4m in July 2007 to 1.3m in July 2008: its fans may be devoted, but its hard to see StumbleUpon as a hot property.

Frankly, the eBay/SU marriage never made a whole bunch of sense. Even StumbleUpon’s blog struggled to find anything that made sense to say about it. “We’re both driven by our community of users, and we are both dedicated to connecting people” seems a deeply woolly excuse to spend $75million, and I’d be tempted to see Meg’s shopaholic tendency behind the purchase.

No more. eBay are rationalising their relationships. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that eBay will be extending their classified ads business:

Jacob Aqraou, general manager of eBay’s global classified business, said he expects the company will take over a “fair” number of companies in the next six months or so. In an interview, Mr. Aqraou said lackluster economic growth and the deepening credit crunch have depressed prices for private companies to such a degree that it now makes more sense to buy established classifieds properties than build new services from scratch. He said eBay’s strategy was to target classified-ad sites that have leading positions in geographies and industry segments in which eBay doesn’t currently compete.

Classified ads are said to be eBay’s fastest growing unit. By using established sites to “fill in the gaps” in their current offerings - Aqraou mentions Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, where eBay’s hold is currently very weak - they can expand at minimal cost and with little risk.

eBayers can also expect to see closer ties between these classified sites and the main eBay marketplace: Auctionbytes reports that eBay sent emails to New York-based users last week, advertising their own free local classifieds site, Kijiji.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under News | 1 Comment 

Kijiji one, PayPal ten, but Skype nowhere?

June 26, 2008

This post was written in June 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Kijiji popcorn manLast week at Live, eBay’s classified ads site Kijiji celebrated their first birthday by giving away bags of popcorn on the exhibition floor. The site now has four million users in north America, and General Manager Janet Bannister promised, “we listen intently to our community and are currently working on several innovative features and customer-focused improvements that will enhance the Kijiji experience.”

Kijiji has popular classifieds categories such as For Sale, Housing, Cars & Vehicles, Jobs, Pets, Services and Personals. In addition to the U.S., Kijiji has online communities in Canada, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, PayPal are celebrating their tenth anniversary with a special microsite detailing the history of the company; the video interviews are particularly worth a look, especially to see JD looking relaxed.

However, rather quieter of late has been eBay partner Skype: they were not in evidence at all at Live, dispite plenty of empty floor space in the exhibition hall which could have easily accomodated them. I heard a rumour that this was due to “an internal issue”, but no more details than that: one has to wonder if Skype CEO Josh Silverman’s insistance that the relationship between Skype and eBay is as strong as ever is something akin to Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford’s Times ad to say they weren’t getting divorced.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under News | 4 Comments 

Gumtree winning the classified ads wars

February 19, 2008

This post was written in February 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

News is out this week that eBay classified ads sites are trouncing the competition. In the US Kijiji has overtaken both Yahoo! Classifieds and Windows Live Expo, and are so far ahead of Google Base and Google Classifieds that they don’t even register on the radar. Craigslist (which eBay owns a stake in) stands out at as the market leader in the US, but Kijiji is now 6th most popular.

gumtreeBack here in the UK however it’s Gumtree that’s making ground. Gumtree is now the undisputed market leader in the online classified ads business with eight million visitors in January alone. Gumtree is the number one classified site in the UK ahead of both Autotrader and Rightmove (source - Nielsen). Last week Gumtree saw their 20,000,000th listing placed on the site.

What is it about classified ads that’s making these sites so popular? A mix of time, ease of use and convenience appears to be the key. Why wait until next Thursday for the local free ads newspaper to drop through your door when you can be online hunting for the item you need immediately? Whether it be a new job, a house an item you need to buy, or simply a quick way to list that item you need to dispose of, online is instant. More importantly Gumtree is free to use in all categories bar recruitment and property (and in property you only pay if you’re a professional landlord or estate agent). The only other time you’ll pay is if you want to feature your ad to get more exposure on the site.

eBay’s classified ads sites will certainly become more important to the group in the future and over the next few weeks we’ll take a closer look at Gumtree and what it has to offer. In the meantime if you’re looking for business premises, staff for your eBay business, or simply have an item to dispose of or to procure then take a look at your local Gumtree site and let us know how you get on.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under News | 6 Comments