Ki-trouve.fr buys DirectGrossiste.com and DirectdeStock.com

French general free ads site Ki-trouve.fr has made a bid for the B2B market with the purchase of DirectGrossiste.com and  DirectdeStock.com both of which specialists in B2B wholesale, liquidation sales and surplus inventory disposal.

Between them the two B2B sites feature over 90,000 ads and a joint visitor total approaching 3 million a year.

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 New job platform in Austria pits on German partner Jobware

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Cars.com focus dealer branding, finding buyers

FindingCarBuyers.com, a Cars.com site especially for dealers, showcases its media efforts to bring consumers to Cars.com dealer advertisers. One of the more interesting of the media resources, Internet radio, showcases Cars.com to Pandora and Spotify listeners with banner, video and audio ads and a one-day home page takeover of Pandora.com. FindingCarBuyers spells out the Cars.com 2012 media campaign.  There’s nothing earth-shatteringly new here, but the effort to break this out into a dealer-focused site is noteworthy.

Additionally, while so much focus is now on pushing online vehicle-shoppers to the specific makes and models they might crave, and then providing an assortment of local dealers who have the car in stock, Cars.com has rolled out new features to help showcase specific dealers. It’s the first of many changes, according to the listing giant’s recent announcement.

The new BaseDrive package for dealers – an automatic upgrade in most markets – includes: Continue reading

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Who’s gonna buy Monster Worldwide? Cheesman says … no one!

Joel Cheesman, formerly known as Cheezhead, is one of our favorite observers of the recruitment scene (along with John Zappe of ERE and formerly CIR). He’s just restarted a regular blog; you can sign up at bit.ly/notsfw. Here’s the latest installment, about the potential sale of Monster Worldwide including Monster.com. We may disagree — actually, we do — but this is an interesting viewpoint.

Wall Street was buzzing last week on rumors that LinkedIn (LNKD) was in talks to acquire Monster (MWW). According to a Reuters story, LinkedIn Corp and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners are among a number of parties that have expressed interest in a potential deal for Monster Worldwide Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet jobs-search company is preparing data for potential buyers.

The stock shot up on the hype. However, Business Insider and a few others quickly squashed the report as bunk, accusing Monster of desperately trying to stir-up interest.

The thought of a high-growth business like LinkedIn strapping on an albatross like Monster is a bit ridiculous if you think about it for a second. So who, one like me must ask, would buy Monster?

As far as I can tell, the answer is: No one.

Yeah, nobody. John Doe. The invisible man.

Look: Facebook’s IPO is coming up, and analysts are crying about “decelerated growth” and staying the company doesn’t deserve its current valuation. So, knowing growth is what drives the markets, then you have to ask where Monster’s growth catalyst is? 6Sense? SeeMore? BeKnown? Be serious.

Aside from a massive hiring Renaissance, I don’t see any significant growth on the horizon. And certainly nothing to get a buyer all hot-and-bothered.

That said, if a buyer does come out of the woodwork, it’s likely to have Asian roots, hoping to get a foothold in the U.S. and other markets Monster serves. 51Job perhaps? With a market cap greater than Monster’s, it’s possible. Seek.com.au out of Australia perhaps? Nah. Someone out of Europe? It’s kind of a mess there at the moment, in case you didn’t get the memo.

Time will obviously tell. This year’s presidential election will be interesting for business. But methinks there will be no savior riding into to town on a white Trumpasaurus.

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Deal personalization drove Groupon growth

Groupon just reported an 89 percent revenue jump for Q1 2012, compared with the same quarter of 2011. In North America its 75 percent growth was attributed in part to deal personalization, a targeting tool that will soon launch internationally. Groupon customers grew YOY 140 percent, to 36.9 million, with sales from repeat buyers 150 percent of those “doing a deal” for the first time.   The new Groupon Rewards loyalty program, only in certain major markets at this point, brought 2500 merchants into the Daily Deals fold. More than half of first-time merchants returned to place later Deals with the site.

Market research firm ForeSee was commissioned to study both merchant and customer satisfaction with Groupon. The Daily Deals behemoth scored an 83 with customers and 79 with merchants, way ahead of most online retailers.

The jump from 25 percent to 30 percent mobile access from December 2011 to March 2012 may have been the catalyst for the new “up-to-the-minute” Groupon Now success, with 1.5 million Now deals sold.

With past store-owner complaints that Groupon was being far too selective in its choice of who could offer Deals, it’s nice to see that merchants are declaring their happiness with a Deals site.  We suspect that merchant approval is partly due to the Groupon Merchant Center, where merchants can track response, administer and see the history of their deals, and manage their Groupon Rewards activity. Here’s the earnings report.

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Affidata plays Anglophone card

Affidata.co.uk, the U.K. arm of Dutch property portal Affidata has hit on the idea of launching geolocalised searches showing English-speaking agents in the desired area to help English buyers looking for second homes. Given the notorious unwillingness of the English to speak another language, combined with their love of homes abroad the move seems entirely logical. Naturally if it proves popular it will immediately be reproduced by all the larger portals so Affidata’s first-mover status will be studied keenly by Rightmove, DPG et al.

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Latin America report …

Digital classifieds are growing in Latin America -- a mixed landscape of traditional media companies and intercontinental giants that are finding new opportunities.

The 64-page report, for sale here, is a compilation of analyses our clients have already received as recipients of Classified Intelligence Report.

(Clients can receive a copy for free -- just drop us a line.)

Gentle reminder…

Clients' passwords change with every PDF issue of Classified Intelligence Report -- basically, once every other Thursday. Look in your latest edition for the newest password.

Not a client yet? Drop us a line about becoming one.

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