Craigslist.org

Craigslist.org appears to be using a Classified Advertising e-business model – perhaps in the simplest form possible on the net, requiring little to no viewer information input and minimal user information input – it should be noted that Craigslist has been intended as a non-profit site, and the creator has established a non-profit programming and developing community.

The “Best of Craigslist” section of the site is a snapshot of the average Craigslist user. User is defined as the person posting a classified ad onto the site and viewer, alternatively is the person viewing that ad. The average user on Craiglist is someone that has been using the internet for over 1 year and has relied on e-mail for communication; in addition, most users are familiar with internet marketplaces and they tend to be between 30 and 45 years of age. 

The owner of Craigslist is a computer programmer that had an idea for an easy-to-use website that would allow people to exchange classified ads similar to the ease of picking up a newspaper. This simplicity is the very strength of Craigslist.org – there are a plethora of ‘paid’ classified advertisement websites – eBay is an example – but obligatory registrations and entry of credit card details sway many from getting involved with those paid websites.

Bizrate.com

Bizrate.com is a marketplace of sorts – but classifies most accurately as an affiliate type e-business model. Businesses give Bizrate.com a catalog of goods they would like to make searchable through the site’s search engine, when a prospective customer clicks on a product they are redirected to the corresponding merchant’s website, if a purchase is made this click-through and purchase resulted from the listing on Bizrate.com, so the merchant will be billed a fee (sort of an agent/finders fee in the brick and mortar world). Note that Bizrate.com has changed to Shopzilla.com – it is still accessible through the original domain name.

Bizrate does not generate direct revenue from the rating system – they provide this as a free service for merchants, and give them detailed reports of all ratings and clicks. Of course, Bizrate, is not a community service, they do make revenue indirectly by convincing merchants to sign up for premium services and I am quite certain the information collected from customer ratings and merchant inputs is of value and can generate revenue.

Sneakers.com

It appears that Sneakers.com is earning revenue from advertising by simply creating a portal-type e-business model. It looks like the owner of this website has simply compiled a catalog with images that link to merchant websites, for the most part Zappos.com. I didn’t see any affiliate codes or breadcrumbs in the redirected URLs which are signs of affiliate programs. Sneakers.com is in the business of making money from Google Ads placed on their site.

I was surprised that a Google search for “sneakers” did not display sneakers.com in the first few pages. So most people find this site perhaps directly, by typing sneakers.com in their browser address bar. The site only has a google page rank of 4/10 – clearly the owner’s haven’t dedicated much time to search engine optimization.

Resources

• Internet Ads – Advertising Online