Comments on: Some Thoughts On The Online Classifieds Battle

By: modemfish

modemfish — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:30:00 +0000

An interesting article. The reality is the optimum benefit for consumers is for a single site to succeed. The dilemma is that it's very easy to set up a classifieds site, so it's unlikely buyouts / consolodation will take place any time soon. The only way forward is for the consumers to elect a single site of choice. Anyhow interesting to see where we are another 5 years down the line.

By: modemfish

modemfish — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:30:00 +0000

By: Ian Timothy

Ian Timothy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:33:38 +0000

Hello! Thanks for your comments. With regards to the last one, I totally agree that knowing how to create a good ad is important. Apparently one of the reasons why Google’s AdWords/AdSense have been successful is because they (i.e. Google) encourage people to actually think about how to create good ad copy with the limited amount of characters that appear at the side of the search results.

By: D.Sun

D.Sun — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:32:04 +0000

I’d like to agree with the point of starting off with a niche and servicing that sector of the masses. I think one of the biggest problems companies get themselves into is that they focus too much on the business and too little on the relationship they have with their customers. Alot of them tend to grow too soon, incorporating too many products and services with no real strong customer base.

Viral marketing is very strong in this aspect I guess, the logic is pretty simple here. Say for example, a guy looking to sell his house is looking for an agent (the position which Mocca.com is trying to replace here), his “selling cycle” starts when he suggests to his wife about it, and his wife agrees. Both of them go on to source for an agent. I would like to think that the first thing that comes to their mind would be friends and family who might have been in contact with an agent who provides good value and service.

The point is Mocca.com came up with real financial backing but no big ass customer following. It just appeared out of the blue and, due to it’s sheer size and technology involved, is kind of overwhelming to some.

Another point I wanna bring up, is their advertising, the message has generally been “how a classified ad on Mocca.com would look or sound like”, however they left out a very very important point. How do I GREATE something like that? As much as blogging and youtube is growing like wildfire nowadays, there are still more people who only know how to read and browse them than people who actually know how to create the contents. I think they should focus a little on providing simple step by step guides in their ads.

just my 2 cents though..

By: Louis-guillaume

Louis-guillaume — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:47:46 +0000

Thanks for the link ;)

By: Ian Timothy

Ian Timothy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:29:33 +0000

Hey, I already like the look of your current site. And I’m not the only one. Over @ http://creativespark.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/mediacorp-vs-sph-giants-prepare-for-the-next-lap/#comments
someone else has also expressed similar sentiments.

By: Louis-guillaume

Louis-guillaume — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:18:07 +0000

Thanks Ian for this analysis. Very interesting.

A new version of Inkiti will be available tomorrow night. Hope you’ll like it !

By: Ian Timothy

Ian Timothy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:10:20 +0000

Hello yanto. I used three categories as a gauge. If you looked at the numbers I gave, the category that had the biggest difference was in the sales category. You are right though. Singapore has quite a few established sites in the jobs and housing verticals and thus the lack of postings in these categories might be attributed to those sites. However, Craigslist in the US also has to compete with other sites which are specializing in verticals. For example, Monster.com for the jobs vertical.

For this post, I did not do an analysis of the traffic for all the sites mentioned in the post. If you look at st701, they would have more job postings then Craigslist for Singapore within the same timeframe. In a sense, this might mean that maybe localization of a foreign brand in the online classifieds space might not be a viable strategy.

I’ve been thinking about this and maybe a better way to collect data for my theory about the culture issue would be to take the top online classifieds site in Singapore and compare it to the top online classified sites for other cities with a similar population density. That could possibly give a clearer picture.

Thanks for your input. The competition in this space to me is really interesting and thus anything that provokes more thought is always welcomed.

By: yanto

yanto — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:26:09 +0000

Is it fair to compare jobs & housing only? As we all know there have been more prominent portal for those 2 category? How about traffic? Have we consider all classified website?