Fred Business News-Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has launched an online classified advertising site, a move that opens a broader range of shopping to Wal-Mart's Internet customers.
The site is run through Oodle.com, a three-year-old
"This free, community-based resource allows customers to buy and sell items locally, find local jobs and learn about events in their area," Walmart.com spokesman Ravi Jariwala said Tuesday in an e-mail message.
Expanding services
Jariwala said the site expands goods and services that Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) customers can buy through the company.
"It also further connects our community of 130 million customers who shop the Wal-Mart brand each week," Jariwala said.
Craigslist has long been considered the leader in the sector, which has seen the number of "for sale" listings surge in the down economy as more people are looking to sell items to help them make ends meet.
Oodle Chief Executive Craig Donato said he has seen significant traffic growth in the last three to four months.
"There's lots of reasons, but I suspect one is that classified advertising is a category that will do well" when times are tough, Donato said.
Online classifieds
Donato said Wal-Mart is a good fit for Oodle's online classifieds because Wal-Mart has such a strong local presence in each community where it has stores. He noted that local classified purchases start online but end with an in-person meeting where cash is exchanged for an item.
"The classifieds market is undergoing a huge upheaval," Donato said. The biggest difference is that rather than paying to run ads in a newspaper, more and more patrons are running their ads free online. He said classified advertising sounds like a "sleepy" portion of the ad sector, but it generates $30 billion every year.
Source; Cnn.com
About Fred: Fred is president of The I Team Organization. With a back ground in agriculture Fred has lead many successful business ventures.
