Kijiji overview
In 2005, eBay launched their own version of online classifieds which they called as Kijiji which is a Swahili word that means “village”.
Kijiji was launched for the international markets but was not available for the United States. It prides itself for having a platform where buyers, sellers, employers and job hunters can all post an ad without paying anything to the website. Because of this, it knocks out its other competitors who charge a certain amount for ad postings.
Unfortunately, Kijiji did not get good popularity because it did not offer its service to the U.S. residents. So, after 2 years, finally eBay announced that they are going to launch Kijiji for the United States. It caused quite a stir especially with a feud between eBay and Craigslist.
A feud between Craigslist and eBay started because Kijij is offering the same type of service as Craigslist and eBay owns 25% of Craigslist so they don’t really have much of a say to what and how Craigslist should be operated. They both have different outlooks so eBay decided to create their own classified ads website of their own.
Kijiji uses Skype which lets the buyers and sellers contact one another in real time. There is a “call me” button in the ads so once the ad poster is online, you can call them and ask for questions and get real-time answers.
Craigslist is known for its simplicity and it adapts to what its users want. Kijiji is different, on the other hand, because it has a stable platform that has already been thought of before its launch.
The battle between eBay and Craigslist became much anticipated to the online world because they are 2 online giants who both filed a case against each other. The battle continues and the ruling is much awaited.
For people who don’t want to pay for posting an online ad, Kijiji is the best place to go. It is available in all 50 states and supports 220 cities. If your city is not listed in the 220 cities, you can post your ad to a nearby city so you’d still get the right market. Both Kijiji and Craigslist are helping the buyers, sellers, employees and job hunters, and others in many ways. With a new competitor for Craigslist, it is the people who would greatly benefit from their expansions and updates.