Craigslist Business Model | Business Model Navigator

Overview:

Craigslist is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. cities in 2000, and now covers 70 countries.

Industries:

Information Technology

Services

Similar firms (based on pattern co-occurrence):

3 shared patterns

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3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

Business Model Patterns:

Hidden Revenue

How they do it: Craigslist generates revenue through listing fees for certain categories such as jobs and apartments. Users can use the platform for free.

Leverage Customer Data

How they do it: Craigslist utilizes user data to target results to searches and help both seekers and finders to find better results to their searches.

No Frills

How they do it: Craigslist functions as a simple classified platform organized by categories. The nature of postings is simple and straightforward making listing and finding easy.

Peer-to-peer

How they do it: Craigslist doesn’t create any content for its customers but is based on a pure peer-to-peer model. Peers can be both companies as well as private individuals.

Two-sided Market

How they do it: Craigslist works as a two-sided market offering people to offer and search for various services and goods. The market participants can be both businesses as well as private individuals.

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