This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.
Something new and something old, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) the large Internet trading platform competes more each day with Craigslist, who's platform continues to unfold. They are very much the same, and oh so different, too. Craigslist has been resisting becoming eBay in too many ways, yet eBay has gone through the back door to acquiring partial ownership and tracking a competitive threat from the inside.
Being public, eBay must disclose its financial information, which is not true for the private Craigslist. Craigslist is not happy about eBay's ownership position, and for its part eBay has sued Craigslist. It says the board diluted its interest in the popular site by more than 10%, and the two have been trading accusations since.
For most of Craigslist's history there has been pressure to become public or sell itself outright or make the pursuit of profit a higher motive. That has been shunned in favor of slowly building a user friendly and practical Internet information trading platform.
This has to bother eBay and other Internet companies to no end because without shareholders to answer to or a profit motive they keep taking business away from others, or at least diluting the business of companies that have a different directive --- meaning they must live and die their with their bottom lines.
It is anybody's guess what Craiglist would be worth if it had an IPO or pursued a different business strategy but I imagine one scenario would be simply for eBay to acquire the outstanding shares. So far Craigslist has managed to march to it's own drummer resisting the call of Wall Street, pressure from eBay, or the riches promised by private equity.
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of EBAY.
Vote in our poll for eBay or Craigslist as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.
Entrepreneur's Journal: Putting together a solid sales contract
The week in preview: Earnings from Walmart, Macy's, and other retailers
Six top trades for the rest of 2009
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-08-2008 @ 7:36PM
Lynnette said...
This is a no brainer. The management of Craigs is superior to that of ebay.
There is fairness throughout the marketplace since both buyers and sellers of all types are treated with the same importance.
Craigs list is a free marketplace.
There is plenty of help and assistance as well as strong supervision of the listings for everyone, not just the people who are large scale sellers.
The commercial element is absent and there are no ads shoved down the throats of the patrons.
Ebay stock is doing poorly this year.They need to leave the auction business and do what they do best: search engine development.
5-17-2008 @ 3:11PM
RainyDayInterns said...
We had made the following observations after an odd little encounter this past week on Craigslist :-)
http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2008/Home/May/RDMHomeMay08W3.htm#EBayVsCraigslist