eBay to Be Rival of Craigslist in Online Classifieds.

Ebay introduces new online classified advertising service called Kijiji in US; new service pits eBay against company it partly owns: Craigslist, company that manages classified ad sites for 300 cities, which attract 12 million new ad listings each month; Ebay bought 25% stake in Craigslist in 2004.

EBay, the Internet auction leader, has quietly introduced a new online classified advertising service in the United States.

The new service, called Kijiji, pits eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., against a company it partly owns: Craigslist, the San Francisco-based company that manages classified ad sites for 300 cities, which attract 12 million new ad listings each month. EBay bought a 25 percent stake in Craigslist in 2004.

Kijiji, which means "village" in Swahili, is one of eBay's several classified advertising efforts outside the United States. It is the market leader in Canada, Germany, Italy and Taiwan.

EBay introduced the Kijiji site in the United States without fanfare last Friday, a move that was reported yesterday on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal. The new site has separate classified ad pages for 220 cities and allows users to buy and sell items in a variety of categories like antiques, cars, motorcycles and pets.

"This is going to be our classified ad play in the United States," said an eBay spokesman, Hani Durzy. "We look at it as competition to Craigslist and other platforms. But we think there is room for competition." Mr. Durzy said eBay was planning to keep its stake in Craigslist.

EBay plans to attract users to its new site by buying advertisements on search engines and by ensuring that listings appear in unpaid, or natural, search engine results. There are no plans to direct eBay traffic to the site, Mr. Durzy said.

Craigslist's chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, said, "One of the beauties of viewing our world through public service goggles is that there is no need to worry about what other companies are doing.

"Many companies offer classifieds, but since we don't concern ourselves with considerations such as market share or revenue maximization, we don't think of them as competition, or as a challenge to Craigslist."

This article appeared in The New York Times, July 4, 2007.