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Wal-Mart Launches Online Classifieds Through Oodle.com

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 4, 2008

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores, 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 3-year-old San Mateo, Calif., company, and links to Oodle's online offerings.

"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.
Jariwala said the site expands goods and services that Wal-Mart 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 make ends meet.
Oodle chief executive Craig Donato said he has seen significant traffic growth in the past 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.

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. He said the biggest difference is that rather than paying to run ads in a newspaper, more patrons are running their ads free online. Donato said classified advertising sounds like a "sleepy" portion of the ad sector but generates $30 billion a year.

The shift has created a separation between individuals taking out want ads and business classifieds such as auto for sale or real estate offerings.

Donato said Oodle's business plan is to serve both of those markets by offering free ads, which appeal to individuals, and by offering premium placement to those willing to pay for it, which appeals to businesses.

The shift is a large one, he said. Retailers have customarily bought ads in newspapers, not competed with them for classifieds.

Donato says Oodle posts more than 500,000 new listings daily, generated through more than 80,000 sites. Oodle runs classifieds for numerous companies, including newspapers, TV stations and military.com, a consolidated site for the armed services.

Terms of the arrangement with Bentonville-based Wal-Mart were not released.

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