Wal-Mart Decides to Challenge Craig’s List
In a cage match that could prove to be very amusing, Wal-Mart has decided to take on Craig’s List by offering free on-line classified ads. Although the beta site for their service is filled with Wal-Mart’s branding, it’s powered by Oodle, a company out of San Mateo California, which was founded by former Excite and eBay executives.
The site not only has ads from Wal-Mart customer, but also pulls from the resources of Oodle who also powers Lycos Classified, Local.Com, Military.com and a number of newspapers.
It did seem appropriate to see an ad on the front page of the Wal-Mart classified site for “Molly,” a seven year old broke mule that was listed for $600. Over 300 city/areas are listed on the Wal-Mart site for ad listings.
Oodle claims that they are the largest local classified site for a number of products and services. The Wall Street Journal reports that the site has 30 millions items, but unfortunately doesn’t say exactly how many of them would be worth buying.
The International Business Times reports that CraigsList at 30.3 million unique users monthly and Oogle at 5 million users. As far as charges, CraigsList only charges for employment listings in selected cities while Oogle users can also post for free but can pay a fee to command a better position for their listing.
There is an amusing 25 bullet point list of items that may not be sold on the Wal-Mart classified site; so forget it if you wanted to sell fireworks, animal parts or obsene material to name a few. (Check the list here)
Although they are the first retailer to try free classified ads, it’s yet to be seen how committed Wal-Mart is to this project. As you may remember Wal-Mart’s on-line video download service lasted less than a year, however there were some technology problems involved too.
Meanwhile Molly the mule waits for a buyer.
More Info:
To see the ad for “Molly” go here
Read the Wall Street Journal article here.
Read the International Business Times article here.
