A group of US newspaper and broadcast TV news websites have launched boocoo.com – a listings and auction site to compete against eBay and Craigslist.
As well as charging for listings, the revenue plan for the site is to licence listings by zip code to individual newspaper publishers.
Tony Marsella, president of boocoo’s parent company Ranger Data Technologies, tells the Editors Weblog:
On Craigslist the model is “put the ad up and people work the price down”, whereas our model is just the opposite. Put the item on and bid the price up. We will also not allow “adult” materials, services, etc. Our standard will be the high standards that newspapers have maintained for years in their local markets. We will in the proper fashion make all of these points in our ad campaigns.
eBay is extremely vulnerable in the area of general merchandise auctions. They have moved far from those people as they continue to move toward big box retail and fixed price selling. Items that are difficult to ship, (lawn mowers, large furniture, snow blowers, etc) work very well in a market that has a local emphasis. Local focus also gives consumers the added advantage of shopping for services.