Wanna buy a cute, cuddly Shih-tzu? How about a 1993 Chevy truck? A three-bedroom, two-bath house in Maryland?
Think Wal-Mart.
Wait a second before you decide the big-box retailer has gone gonzo with the concept of selling everything under the sun. It's actually testing the waters with a beta of free online classified ads.
The site, launched last week and powered by Oodle.com, carries more than 40 million listings because it taps into Oodle.com's already-existing postings. Start-up Oodle.com aggregates listings from more than 80,000 local and national sites.
Wal-Mart's free service allows sellers and buyers to post and search for items in seven categories and in major U.S. cities.
The effort is a direct challenge to Craigslist, which offers free ads with the exceptions of job postings in some cities and brokered apartment listings in New York City. However, the two services aren't identical.
Advertisers can pay Oodle.com for higher placement on search results or via an auction-based system.
A report in The Wall Street Journal notes that Wal-Mart has piloted programs in the past before ultimately deciding against keeping them for the long haul. Movie downloads was one of them.
For a bit of entertainment, check out the list of items that can't be sold via Wal-Mart's classifieds.
Craigslist has responded to a lawsuit filed by eBay, noting that it "came to us out of the blue," according to a posting on its craigslist blog Tuesday.
The popular online classified-ad site issued its response after eBay on Tuesday filed a lawsuit, alleging that its 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist was diluted by more than 10 percent in January. eBay, which acquired its minority stake in 2004, submitted its lawsuit under seal and, as a result, few details are readily available.
Craigslist said it was surprised by the action, stating that eBay had not attempted to discuss the matter with the company prior to filing its complaint.
"Coming from a shareholder that views craigslist as a prime competitor, filing suit without so much as mentioning these assertions beforehand seems unethical, and hints at ulterior motives," Craigslist notes in its blog.
And what ulterior motives could Craigslist be referring to? The company alleges: "eBay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened here - unless of course they're contemplating a hostile takeover of craigslist, or the sale of eBay's stake in craigslist to an unfriendly party. In which case, they're out of luck."
Craigslist, however, is not a publicly traded company, so a "hostile takeover" is a less likely route. eBay selling its stake to another party may be something worth keeping an eye on, given that's how eBay came into its Craigslist stake in 2004.
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