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Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific

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Grass-Roots Classifieds Momentum

January 24, 2007

There are some interesting movements in the online classifieds space in the Australian market. I thought I'd highlight a few websites that have recently come across my radar.

GumTree Directory

Based on a similar net community model of Craig's List in the US, GumTree ranked at 4th in the Classifieds category for the week ending 20 January 2007. GumTree has certainly picked up traction in the last six months, increasing its market share by 96.5% comparing weeks ending 22 July 2006 and 20 January 2007. A core strength of GumTree is its localised service - its Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and London sub-domains all rank within the top 20 classifieds websites. There were 224 variations on the search term, 'gumtree' for the 4 weeks ending 20 January 2007, with geographic references predominant.

TheTrove

TheTrove is a free service operated by department stores website, Deals Direct, ranked #22 in Classifieds week ending 20 January 2007. The service employs web 2.0 features such as tag clouds that give an indication of TheTrove's product category strengths and nuances, such as 'cartridge', 'ink', 'hp' and 'lexmark'. TheTrove appears to be a key tactic for Deals Direct in generating traffic referrals, as well as acquiring and retaining members. Hitwise Clickstream data indicate that TheTrove referred 11.6% of its downstream traffic to Deals Direct for the week ending 20 January 2007.

FindIt

Findit offers an independent classifieds service for newsagents, as the need to move from traditional advertising to an online model becomes apparent. Hitwise Upstream traffic to FindIt provides an indication of its competitive strengths, with referral share including Automotive - Classifieds 8.15%, Employment 2.72%, Classifieds (general) 2.72%, Dating 2.05% and Property 1% for the week ending 20 January 2007.

Rave About It

A novel feature of Rave About It is that it integrates user reviews with listings of professional services. I imagine for the medical and legal industries, receiving referrals based on word of mouth from patrons would be crucial - this is no less applicable to online where consumer opinions can spread virally. Launched in late 2006, it'll be interesting to see what website traction Rave About It picks up.

Competitive Shift

The overall effect of the entrance of these and other smaller players is a shift in the traffic distribution to the online Classifieds industry. Let's look the category make-up in 2007 compared to 2006:

While the top 10 Classifieds websites accounted for 83.1% for the week ending 21 January 2006, they now comprise 75.3% for the week ending 20 January 2007. The decline of 7.8% in combined market share for the top 10 players means we're seeing a more competitive industry. This is a trend for the major classifieds to keep an eye on.

Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 04:49 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Classifieds