Wall Street Journal looks at Craigslist, the free classified service now serving 300 U.S. cities.
No one really questions that Craigslist could be bigger — much, much bigger. The company took in a relatively paltry $25 million or so in revenue last year, while its peers among the Internet’s top 10 raked in billions.
One industry analyst has estimated that Craigslist could generate 20 times that $25 million just by posting a couple of ads on each of its pages. If the estimate is to be believed, that’s half a billion dollars a year being left on the table. What kind of company turns up its nose at $500 million?
According to its CEO, Jim Buckmaster, a company fully focussed on one thing—delivering its brand promise to its customers. “If it’s not something that users are asking for,” he says, “we don’t consider it.”
