Deal summary
eBay, an American multinational e-commerce corporation acquired Gumtree, a British online classified advertisement and community website for an undisclosed sum.
- eBay said the business would fit in well with its other online classified businesses elsewhere in the world.
- The purchase saw the giant US website threaten newspaper classified advertising revenue streams as most adverts posted on Gumtree were free.
About eBay
eBay is an American multinational e-commerce corporation based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble. eBay is a multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 32 countries, as of 2019. The company manages the eBay website, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and services worldwide. The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and again when those items are sold.
About Gumtree
Gumtree is a British online classified advertisement and community website based at Hotham House, Richmond, London. Classified ads are either free or paid for depending on the product category and the geographical market. As of November 2010, it was the UK's largest website for local community classifieds and was one of the top 30 websites in the UK, receiving 14.8 million monthly unique visitors according to a traffic audit in 2010. At the time of the acquisition, Gumtree was available in multiple cities in United Kingdom, Poland, France, Canada, Australia (Gumtree Australia), Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Hong Kong.
"The Gumtree business is a community powered business, the community comes together to sell things or buy things. The businesses that are very successful in this space don't need large teams to run them. It's really a grassroots phenomenon without spending money on marketing or anything"
