People are more and more putting down the red markers, forsaking ink-stained fingers in favor of carpel tunnel and blue-light specials at online classified websites. comScore reports the industry has grown by 47 percent over the past year – not so much from the folks in the Ozarks, though.
The highest concentration of US online classified users is where you’d think it’d be: in Silicon Valley and up the West Coast.
The Pacific region accounted for nearly twenty percent of visitors, followed by the South Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic. Along the Old Man’s brow, in the East South Central region, the river folk make up just four percent of online job seekers and bargain hunters.
Craigslist leads all others, growing by 99 percent over the last year, attracting nearly 14 million July visitors, or over a third of the 37.4 million classified site visitors.
“As the category leader, Craigslist has clearly impacted the way in which new and traditional media companies approach the classifieds business,” said Andrew Lipsman, Senior Analyst of comScore Networks.
Trader Publishing Company wasn’t far behind with over 10 million unique visitors, but if taken as a whole with third place AutoTrader, which TPC owns as well, the total moves to over 16 million.
With Craigslist and TPC controlling 75 percent of the online classified sector, the remaining 10 million visitors preferred, in order, Cars.com, Apartments.com, Livedeal.com, Homescape.com, Backpage.com, Oodle.com, and RegionalHelpWanted.com sites.
The demographics for online classified visitors didn’t skew as young and rich as other categories. The majority are between the ages 35 and 54, representing nearly 43 percent. Nearly the same percentage, 41.4, making less than $60,000 per year.
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