14 responses

  1. Billy
    June 10, 2008

    Kijiji seems to have a larger market share than Craigslist, at least in the Waterloo Region…

    http://kitchener.kijiji.ca/

    Along the line of small community sites
    http://www.connectorlocal.com/
    seems to be the largest in our area. How’d they do it? I think that WeCreate (the company behind ConnectorLocal) did the websites for the local radio stations gratis…

    Reply

  2. Personal Tax & Financial Planning
    June 10, 2008

    You know going head-to-head with Craigslist is not that bad an idea. I’ve seen a number of local type sites around in Canada and some with a fair degree of volume.

    Now e-Bay did launch Kijiji which, in my city (Burlington Ontario) is hotter than hot. My wife has pretty much sold off all our excess stuff and pretty short order on Kijiji. Craigslist has been a dud.

    I think on-line classified are still a great idea and there is plenty of opportunity if you can develop a nieche and promote the idea.

    Reply

  3. Mr. Cheap
    June 10, 2008

    PT&FP: I’d say this is an example of a company, Kijiji, starting in a market Craigslist hadn’t entered, or at least weren’t well established in (Burlington).

    The only thing e-Bay (I didn’t know they were behind Kijiji, thanks) has going for it is these sites are dirt cheap to run, so there’s no big pain in trying to nibble away at Craigslist in the coming years.

    Long term, my money would be on Craigslist, even in Burlington.

    Reply

  4. Nobleea
    June 10, 2008

    I’d put my money on Kijiji. I think craigslist is good for the artist types looking for gigs, but for anything else, kijiji is where they look. I have sold quite a bit off kijiji and not even tried with craigslist.

    People nowadays will not be satisfied with the uber-basic text interface that craigslist has. They expect more glam. Though I will mention that because kijiji is fraught with ads. But it is infinitely more popular out here (Edmonton).

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  5. Mr. Cheap
    June 10, 2008

    I smell a wager in the making 😉

    Reply

  6. Jerry Hung
    June 10, 2008

    For Kitchener-Waterloo, Kijiji >>>> Craigslist
    I’ve sold more stuff on Kijiji than Craigs, although a few times Craigs came to the rescue
    But I am too lazy to post in 2 places

    One problem is there are so much spams on Kijiji now, with shipping products from England 🙁 they need to prevent scammers with graphic verification

    Reply

  7. Al
    June 10, 2008

    For Ottawa, I like Kijiji better. I find it’s easier to find what I’m looking for.

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  8. Warren
    June 10, 2008

    I’m in Vancouver. I’ve used craigslist to buy and sell stuff, it works great. I’ve looked at kijiji, but it seems to have less buyers and sellers here.

    I have a friend in Victoria who has sold a lot through usedvictoria.com. I think it all depends what catches on.

    I think you could find a niche in local communities. Metro Vancouver, much like Toronto and other major cities, is made up of a bunch of suburbs, and even within those, a bunch of communities. Craigslist and others don’t (yet) separate those out too well.

    Reply

  9. Jordan Clark
    June 11, 2008

    I thought of a similar idea to this for apartment buildings, the other group it would fit very nicely would be co-op housing groups which could use it to organize.

    Reply

  10. Mr. Cheap
    June 13, 2008

    Billy & Jerry: Thanks for the advice, I’ll definitely look at Kijiji more. I’d pretty well dismissed it, so its definitely good to know if its “the” site for KW classifieds (maybe that explains why I had trouble finding a place to live on craigslist 😉 ).

    Reply

  11. CamTurner
    June 19, 2008

    Billy, For the record ConnectorLocal.com now pulls in the RSS feed from Kijiji for KW and blends them with other sources of classified information as well as ones provided directly to the site by members. It sort of makes a first-stop shop for buying stuff in the area. Users are still sent on to the original source site (like Kijiji) for more info, but the blending allows people to look in one place instead of 5 or more if they want a used bed cheap…

    Reply

  12. Triad Website
    September 21, 2008

    The good thing about a local classifieds website is that its possible to do offline marketing to build traffic. Plus, its possible to create a valuable community resource with parks, museums, and local flavor. We’re just starting this with triadwebsite.com, in North Carolina, USA. This isn’t such a wacky idea!

    Reply

  13. Mr. Cheap
    September 22, 2008

    Triad: Yes, you’re absolutely right! With a local site, you can post signs, leave pamphlets under peoples doors and / or on car windshields and connect with people in a way that a purely on-line site never could.

    Craigslist did this in the early days (they’d have Craigslist parties), and I think that’s part of the reason they’re so entrenched in SF and NY. They obviously couldn’t do this everywhere they’ve expanded, and Kijiji has been able to take markets away from them…

    Good luck with your venture!

    Reply

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