This post is a little outside the realm of my usual snark and cynicism, but I feel like posting it so nyeh.
Yesterday, many tech sites reported that Wal-Mart was starting an online classifieds service Here.
I forwarded the link to some folks I work with as a heads-up and we got to talking.
I grew up in Bentonville, where Wal-Mart HQ is located. The place fairly exudes Wal-Mart corporate, so anytime I visit I pick up whatever is going on by osmosis. Doesn't make me an expert, but when I see moves like this I have a pretty good idea what they're thinking.
My take:
They are working hard to build their online brand. They want to drive traffic to their online store and I bet they’re hoping a classifieds service will accomplish that. I’m betting they’ll serve ads from their online store next to search results, so If someone is looking for a lava lamp and there aren’t any classified listings, they’ll show you where you can buy one from Walmart.com instead. (more after the jump)
Plus Craigslist doesn’t have much presence outside of urban areas, so I’m thinking Wal-Mart wants to create an online classifieds brand that will cater to small towns and rural areas - much like their retail stores – thus filling in the gaps between Craiglist’s areas.
Not a bad idea really, since the users will probably be buying/selling serious equipment like farm implements instead of futons.
Small-town papers should be very afraid if they weren’t already. Many of these papers had initially dodged the Craig bullet that many urban-area papers took right in the wallet.
Should be interesting to watch. Honestly, I have a feeling it will really catch on in the areas between the country's urban centers. Wal-Mart is already a trusted brand and offers users a much less threatening foray into the online buying/selling world than the "hippie/peacenik" Craigslist.
