AIM Group » France

Anoonce allies with Trovit

Steve Shipside — Fri, 31 May 2013 12:42:03 +0000

It’s a brave startup that launches into the French general market and so when Anoonce launched this year there were questions about whether its self-declared USP of ergonomic design would give it the reach and traffic needed to survive.

Now Anoonce has anoonced an alliance with ad search engine Trovit in the search for traffic. According to François Cuffaro, manager at Anoonce.fr explains; “The site’s usability has been developed to enable a user to post an ad in seconds and bringing the life back to ads was our team’s goal. ….Our collaboration with Trovit allows users to greatly increase the chances of finding buyers quickly.” His counterpart at Trovit, Camille Lopez added that “Trovit is now present in 38 countries across the world with sections for property, second hand cars, second hand belongings and holiday lets. We are delighted to work with Anoonce which takes pride in the way it indexes adverts on its site and that combination offers unique content.”

Leboncoin now declares itself market leader for holidays

Steve Shipside — Fri, 31 May 2013 12:31:13 +0000

The behemoth that is Leboncoin has long been noted for its dominance in job ads but as it tops 17.5 million visitors a month (source;Mediametrie) it is also declaring itself to be number one for holiday rentals.

“We are the leader in private holiday rentals, ahead of Abritel in terms of number of adverts” declares Antoine Jouteau, Marketing Director. It is indeed, and by some way at that with 110,145 holiday homes compared to 78,161 against its nearest rival.

Ninth most visited of all French web sites with 17.5 million UVs (eBay, by comparison, got 9.7 million over the same period) the site notes 1.2 million visitors purely for the holiday lets section.

It’s a simple enough freemium approach: the site proposes a €75 upgrade to a six month package from the standard two month free package. That also gives better positioning and a total of ten photos. Leboncoin declines to give details of conversion rates but clearly its traffic figures provide a compelling enough sales story.

Over a third of all French web users visiting car sites

Steve Shipside — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:06:04 +0000

16.9 million visitors, or 37.3 per cent of all French web users visited car sites in March according to figures from national audience auditors Médiamétrie. Of the different categories of car sites (manufacturers’ own, information, and classifieds) it was the classifieds ads sector that got the biggest share. The car section of Leboncoin alone scored 7.8 million visitors, followed by car portal Caradisiac with 3.8 million, and La Centrale with 3.1 million. As Médiamétrie concludes; “nearly half of all men aged 35 to 49 visited at least one of the sites of this sub category [i.e. classifieds] in the month of March.”

Monster’s SeeMore rolls out in France

Sharon Hill — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:00:42 +0000

Monster Introduces SeeMore™, its Semantic Search and Analytics Recruiting Platform in France

The first in a series of non-English versions to be rolled out globally

MAYNARD, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Expanding its growing adoption in the U.S. among enterprise companies and staffing firms, Monster, the worldwide leader in successfully connecting people to job opportunities and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) today announced the launch of SeeMore™ in France, the first semantic search and workforce analytics recruitment platform available in the French market. Powered by Monster’s 6Sense™ semantic search technology, SeeMore offers employers a powerful solution to reduce recruitment costs and improve hiring efficiency and effectiveness.

“Companies who can crack the code of managing their data in recruitment will improve efficiency and cost per hire, gain knowledge to make strategic business and hiring decisions, and ultimately achieve the competitive edge they’re after.”

“SeeMore provides the focus for recruitment teams to build relationships and manage talent, which in turn empowers them with actionable information and predictive workforce analytics to grow their business,” said Mark Conway, Chief Information Officer, Monster Worldwide. “Companies who can crack the code of managing their data in recruitment will improve efficiency and cost per hire, gain knowledge to make strategic business and hiring decisions, and ultimately achieve the competitive edge they’re after.”

Through simple, seamless integration with all systems, SeeMore consolidates all of a company’s resumes from multiple sources and stores a copy in one safe, secure location. The precision of Monster’s 6Sense semantic search technology then searches resumes from internal databases, Monster’s database, referrals, and social networks, to sort and rank the best candidates all in one place. With SeeMore, companies move beyond talent sourcing to talent management, using advanced analytics for strategic workforce planning. HR teams can better streamline their talent management workflow reducing recruitment costs and improving the productivity of HR teams.

In a CXP-Monster France survey of more than 570 HR and Recruiting Managers in France ⁱ, the biggest recruitment challenges include lack of time (59%), targeting good talent pools (55%) and the quantity of data being managed (50%). HR departments today face two main challenges; an overwhelming amount of data from multiple sources and the lack of advanced technology to help manage the talent pools. Talent management technology is expressed as a barrier by 37% of participants, which presents an opportunity for these managers in the French market.

“With SeeMore on the market in France, Monster will be giving a new dimension to its HR solutions, thus becoming a 360-degree talent management partner for our customers,” said Gilles Cavallari, General Manager of Monster France, Spain and Belux. “In a job market that has been undergoing massive changes, Monster’s role has evolved; we will connect seekers and employers, globally, by providing innovative HR solutions with high added value.”

SeeMore™ in France has been ranked second out of 43 at a Big Data Innovation Trophy event, which rewards innovative products in big data management.

SeeMore is currently available in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and now France. For more information on Monster’s SeeMore cloud technology and full suite of Monster technology solutions, visit http://findbetter.monster.com/.

About Monster Worldwide

Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:MWW), is the global leader in successfully connecting job opportunities and people. Monster uses the world’s most advanced technology to help people Find Better, matching job seekers to opportunities via digital, social and mobile solutions including monster.com®, our flagship website, and employers to the best talent using a vast array of products and services. As an Internet pioneer, more than 200 million people have registered on the Monster Worldwide network. Today, with operations in more than 40 countries, Monster provides the broadest, most sophisticated job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management capabilities globally. For more information visit about.monster.com.

ⁱ Source: Survey conducted in France by Monster and CXP between January 9 and 30, 2013. The 574 validated participants are, for a wide majority, part of HR Departments or Corporate General Management (81%) and 26% are Recruiting Managers.

Stock market hits Spir hard over profit warnings

Steve Shipside — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:28:58 +0000

Spir Communication saw its share price drop this week by 8.7 per cent on the announcement of profit warnings. The company seems to be struggling to convince investors about the speed of its evolution away from print and towards online. This despite new appointments at the top.

The share price fall mirrors a quarterly fall in turnover of nine per cent with sectors such as its generalist magazines reporting a fall of 19.2 per cent. Over the same period its portals such as Caradisiac.com and LaCentrale.fr saw a rise of 1.7 per cent in turnover.

Meilleurtaux.com and SeLoger.com hook up for marketplace metrics

Steve Shipside — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:23:25 +0000

Meilleurtaux, the leading French online mortgage broker, and property portal SeLoger.com have joined forces for a regular quarterly survey of national property prices.

For the moment the results suggest a largely stable market in terms of prices but the French press has jumped on the suggestion by Roland Tripard, head of SeLoger, that in certain parts of the country prices are falling and he predicts a slow but continuous fall in the region of five to ten per cent over the year.

The fall is ascribed to the record low in lending – which makes the association of Meilleurtaux and SeLoger all the more interesting as property portals and the financial sector turn to each other for means to move on from the slump.

Spir Communication appoints new DG

Steve Shipside — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:46:09 +0000

Spir Communication, owners of car and property portals including Top annonces, Logic-Immo, Caradisiac, and la Centrale has appointed Jean-Michel Neyret as Director General.
The company describes the appointment as “an expression of Group Spir’s determination to reinforce and accelerate its transformation notably in the area of digital”. It’s a statement seemingly designed to calm the nerves of shareholders who have seen revenues from Spir’s print and distribution operations dwindle while digital has risen. Spir famously sold its share of general ads site, Leboncoin to Schibsted in 2010 and has since been focusing primarily on verticals.

Neyret’s pedigree certainly fits the bill for a company turning its attention to online. After spells at car maker Renault and electrical retailer Darty he joined mobile phone company SFR, becoming DG of Marketing for the website and products. Since SFR he has presided over the launch of virtual mobile phone network Simplicime (later to become the mobile arm of the French post office) and has created a start-up incubator called Full Booster.

From here on Spir will be organised around Louis Echelard as Chairman, Neyret as DG, and his deputy DG Patrick Schuster.

EBay France pulls out of classifieds

Steve Shipside — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 05:07:03 +0000

EBay France is closing down the classifieds section of its site effective as of the 18th of March in what will be seen as capitulation in the face of arch rival Leboncoin.
The announcement was made by video (NB French language) featuring François Coumau, eBay’s Director for Continental Europe.
“We have decided to concentrate on what we do the best,” explained Coumau; “which is bringing into contact eBay’s sellers with more than 100 million buyers around the world. Focusing our efforts on adverts in the ‘buy now’ or auction formats allows us to offer an ever more secure buying experience as much for the buyer as for the seller.”
The classifieds section will close on the 18th of March with Coumeau clarifying that, “You can continue to put your classifieds online until the 18th of March and they will remain visible until the 18th of April.”
Coumau went on to add, “For those of you who have not yet tried it I strongly recommend that you put your goods on sale in the ‘buy now’ or auction formats” as an incentive for which he also announces a 20 per cent reduction in final commissions until the 30th of April.

Paruvendu offers car finance

Steve Shipside — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:34:30 +0000

Paruvendu the French generalist classifieds site is trying a new tack in the attempt to come out from the shadow of specialists such as Caradisiac and local behemoth Leboncoin. It is launching a finance service for customers looking to buy a car but in need of a loan. The move also reflects on a marketplace which has seen the sales of new cars fall by about 14 per cent over the last five years.

The finance is being offered in partnership with Sofinco, a lending subsidiary of the Credit Agricole bank and the sums involved range from €5,000 to €75,000 and are due to be paid back over a period varying from a minimum of 12 to a maximum of 72 months.

LocService offers ‘virtual coach’ for tenants

Steve Shipside — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:13:49 +0000

You might not have thought that tenants needed coaching but French rentals specialist LocService believes that a bit of inside advice is precisely what they need to make their searches more realistic. Where the site fails to find a match between the tenants’ criteria and any of the properties on offer the site now focuses on the elements of desired price, space, and other key factors and instead of fixing on the desired location it offers more informed suggestions of either where else the client could find those factors or else a more realistic proposal of what they will get in a given location.

With the cashflow issues of the major European economies this makes sense as consumers are finding it ever harder to get banks to release the funds to buy property meaning that customers who would once have moved off the rental market into owning are now staying put and prices are rising for rentals. Trying to find unconsidered alternative areas to meet requirements makes a lot of sense in that context and it’s a context that isn’t likely to go away any time soon.