eBay have renamed their US classified ads site Kijiji as eBay Classifieds: as of today, the kijiji.com domain name redirects to ebayclassifieds.com. Since its US launch in 2007, eBay have promoted Kijiji as a family-friendly alternative to Craigslist – in which it also owns a stake – but had failed to overtake their rival. Analyst Colin Gillis outlined Kijiji’s problems: “Not visited, hard to pronounce, not Craigslist, no compelling offering. Is that enough?”
The new site has a pretty slick minimalist interface, and promotes eBay’s “stronger filters to help eliminate spam and fraud”. It will also offer seller history. For sellers themselves, posting ads is said to take “half as many clicks”, and there are some new features for managing ads and tracking traffic. In fact, the whole thing just got a lot more eBay-like.
Elsewhere, the original Kijiji.ca Canadian site remains Kijiji, but we might guess that eBay are looking at more changes to their classified sites. eBay France, which runs classifieds and auction/BIN listings much more closely together on the main site, put out an extensive survey this week asking members about their purchasing and selling habits on Petites Annonces (= classifieds), and how those could be improved.
eBay Ink points us to some video promos made for the new eBay Classifieds. I’m not totally convinced by “eBay Classifieds, the place where thick, tight people shop” – but I’m really liking this one for “eBay Classifieds, the place your chair would want you to sell it”:
