eBayClassifieds, Kijiji, and Craigslist… Which is best?

You’ve been using craigslist and/or kijiji to promote your listings, but which one works better?

What are eBayClassifieds, Kijiji and Craigslist?

For those of you who don’t know, eBayClassifieds, Kijiji and Craigslist are free online classifieds websites that allow anyone to post items for sale in their area, and are some of the most used websites in the world. Posted items include everything from pets to vacuum cleaners to mattresses to real estate. Craigslist alone attracts a staggering 20-billion pageviews every month!! Here are some interesting facts you may not have known about these websites:

• eBay is the largest player in the online classifieds market, owning 25% of craigslist, 100% of Kijiji, and 100% of eBayClassifieds
• all websites are mostly free, making their money from preferred services including: paid job postings (craigslist), preferred ad placement (eBayClassifieds and Kijiji), and a variety of other services
• the owners of Craigslist have been accused of being “anti-capitalistic” by facilitating free local transactions and not pursuing massive profits in their company
• On March 30, 2010, eBay decided to close many international kijiji websites and rename its US site to eBayClassifieds.com. Despite their failures in most markets, Kijiji remains the dominant free online classifieds services in Canada and Taiwan, and continues to operate in a handful of other markets.

Why are these websites important?

Because they are searched by millions of people every day and represent one of the largest internet “communities” in existence. Getting in front of this community is completely free and can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a business’ bottom line.

So which one is better?

Let’s take a look:

Traffic by Region

*Alexa rank is a good indicator of website traffic that ranks all website from most popular (1st) to least popular (several billionth).

Posting Options

Estimated time on front page (the most important thing)

This is difficult to estimate, so I chose three cities to use as examples:

• Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – Edmontonians are kjiji users through-and-through.
• Vancouver, BC, Canada – Vancouverites are very technically savvy and use free classifieds services extensively. They are also a hybrid market, being in Kijiji’s hold-out territory but still using craigslist extensively.
• Chicago, IL, USA – America’s second-largest commercial center, this is a natural choice.

Here are the stats for a real estate listing posted in the “real estate for sale” (or equivalent) category.

The verdict

In my opinion, taken on most criteria, Kijiji/eBayClassifieds is better than Craigslist, hands-down. Here’s why:

• Craigslist used to be fantastic at attracting FSBOs - When REALTORS® and Brokers learned about this, they started piling MLS® listings into the FSBO sections. This has forced the FSBOs to go elsewhere, along with the traffic that once looked there.
• Exposure on Craigslist is so minimal it’s not worth the time – having an effective exposure of minutes or seconds (Chicago) just isn’t worth the time to post. I’ve had many top producers tell me this in the last few months.
• Kijiji/eBayClassifieds is what Craigslist used to be – they may not have the same volume of traffic as craigslist, but kijiji/eBayClassifieds’ market share is still substantial. Traffic is more easily measured, and effective advertising time is still good.
• Kijiji is the best of both worlds – Craigslist is great because it’s free – but you can’t upgrade your service even if you want to. Kijiji allows you to do this with paid links, ad upgrades, preferred placements, etc.

My bet is on Kijiji/eBayClassifieds becoming more and more useful over the coming years.