Ebay buys marktplaats.nl / intoko.com

price: $290 million (EUR 225 million)

[RonPK]

Ebay today bought marktplaats.nl, the leading website for classified ads in the Netherlands.

[money.cnn.com...]

EUR 225 million is a lot of money for a company with annual revenues of around EUR 40 million (my estimate). Maybe Ebay bought the company because they could not beat them with ebay.nl.

Marktplaats.nl was founded in 1999 and soon became very successfull. IMHO the success was largely due to the simplicity of the site: no-nonsense layout (frames!) and the easy and mostly free ad placement, reaction and bidding procedures.

Marktplaats also owns intoko.com, a company with similar activities in Canada, Spain, Germany and Turkey.

[HughMungus]

What most interested me about this was that the company they bought also owns second-hand shops in the Netherlands. Makes me wonder if eBay bought them for the traditional retail aspects (e.g., in order to setup their own eBay service stores in Europe).

[RonPK]

No, Ebay only acquired the online business.

[HughMungus]

Ah. Still, the second-hand shop connection is interesting. To me. At least. Probably because I'm working on putting some second-hand shops online.