eBay Goes Head-to-Head with Craigslist
Last Friday, eBay launched the U.S. version of their Kijiji.com online classified site, which will directly compete with Craigslist.org. On the surface, that's not such a surprise. Online classifieds seems a natural extension of eBay's core online auction business and e-commerce brand. Some have already heaped praise on Kijiji's interface, a slightly spiffed-up take on the extremely simplified Craigslist design, and the much better-looking ads.eBay certainly has the skills to make Kijiji a success here, just as it's done in Canada, Germany, and the U.K. But what eBay lacks is Craigslist's core strength. People like eBay because it's a useful means to an end. So is Craigslist, but like Volkswagen and Apple, Craigslist users display an unflagging loyalty to the brand that can be defined more in terms of "warm fuzzies" than in quantifiable metrics.
Certainly, each company's behavior around this launch reveals much about their different corporate philosophies. eBay used its 25 percent stake in Craigslist to learn about the inner workings of the online classified business, and the company freely admits that it used that knowledge to develop its competing service. At best, that represents a conflict of interest. At worst,
Craigslist's response? CNET News.com reports that Craiglist CEO Jim Buckmaster said
that because of Craigslist's public service mission and disinterest in things like "market share and revenue maximization," the company doesn't really care who hops into the classified business.Matthew Ingram, of Canada's Globe and Mail, recalls Buckner's comments at the mesh 2007 conference in Toronto:
Mr. Buckmaster responded to a question about competition by saying that all Craigslist cares about is "things that users are asking for." In other words, not revenue generation or profit or any of the typical business benchmarks.That's why Craigslist users will stay loyal to the site.Sites that are driven by revenue and profit, he said, "sit in meetings trying to figure out ways to drive those metrics up [but] not only do they have very little to do with what users are asking for, oftentimes they run contrary to what users want." Similar criticisms have been made of eBay.