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Classifieds On the Rise During Recession – Hitwise

April 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

U.S. online traffic to Classifieds Web sites increased 84 percent in February 2009 compared with last year, according to a new report from Hitwise. The industry has experienced positive month-to-month growth in share of U.S. visits in all but one month in the past three years. As the state of the U.S. economy has worsened, visits to Classifieds Web sites have continued to climb, up 28 percent from December 2008 to February 2009.

“Consumers have embraced free classifieds as a way to generate income by selling personal items, while others take advantage of the deals available at the fire sales,” said Heather Dougherty, Hitwise research director. “Currently the economy is driving the growth among online classifieds, but satisfied buyers may continue to turn to the Web sites when researching purchases.”


The growth is fueled by the increase in visits to Craigslist and localization of existing classifieds. To better understand and communicate the category’s growth, Hitwise created two custom categories within its report: Craigslist Cities, which includes more than 300 local versions of Craigslist, and All Other Classifieds. The chart below plots the market share of U.S. visits to these two categories over the past year.


The market share of U.S. Internet visits increased 90 percent to the Craigslist Cities custom category year-over-year in February 2009, while visits to All Other Classifieds grew 22 percent. Visits to All Other Classifieds had been declining for most of 2008, with visits starting to increase in January and February. This trend suggests that the worsening U.S. economy may be boosting visits to classifieds Web sites and contributing to the recent uptick in visits to both Craigslist Cities and All Other Classifieds.

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