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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LIVEDEAL™ TOPS $1 BILLION IN LISTED MERCHANDISE VALUE
Leader in Person-to-Person Local Online Marketplace and Free Classifieds Reports Fast Pace Growth in All Metrics
PALO ALTO, Calif. , April 13, 2005 – LiveDeal™ (www.livedeal.com), the leading online marketplace for buying and selling goods locally, today announced it has met a new milestone with the merchandise value of items listed on LiveDeal.com in March 2005 reaching $1 billion. The local online classifieds leader now has more than 200,000 items, up 100 percent in just two months. Gross merchandise and transaction values have also more than doubled over that same period.
More than half a million users visited LiveDeal in March with consumers conducting transactions on more than $155 million in items for sale, up from $80 million in January 2005. Key listings categories such as autos, furniture, real estate and pets are growing at a rate of 35 to 50 percent month over month, demonstrating high demand for an efficient and cost-effective local marketplace for heavy, hard-to-ship items or items consumers like to see or “try before they buy.” The top searches for March conducted on LiveDeal reveal particularly strong interest in “cars”, including Honda, Toyota and Ford models, as well as “puppies”, “boats”, “motorcycles”, “iPods” and “furniture”.
“LiveDeal’s combination of free listings, local item search, and breadth of items for sale is unsurpassed,” commented Rajesh Navar, CEO of LiveDeal. “Consumers across the country are quickly grabbing onto the new opportunities that LiveDeal’s local buying and selling and free online classifieds create.”
According to Greg Sterling, an analyst for The Kelsey Group, “Online represents an enormous growth opportunity for classified advertising. The Internet is now where 70 percent of U.S. households are turning to find goods and services in the local market."
LiveDeal eliminates the costs and limitations of print classifieds and online auctions, and pr ovides an ideal environment for buyers and sellers seeking a safe, pr ofessional and highly-effective medium for conducting transactions. Listings are active for 30 days to help ensure item availability. Because LiveDeal connects people in their local markets, and transactions are conducted in person, consumers avoid shipping and fraud issues associated with online transactions.
Consumers like Steve Thomas of Roscoe , Ill. attest to the advantages of LiveDeal’s local buying and selling environment. Remarked Thomas, “LiveDeal.com has been growing rapidly because of its easy platform for selling both locally and nationally, low to no costs and tremendous network of members helping each other, both in getting started and making sales. There is truly a ‘live deal’ always taking place." |
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With a management team hailing from eBay and other pioneering Internet companies, LiveDeal is a local online marketplace that combines the next-generation classifieds, yellow pages and e-commerce into one user-friendly solution. LiveDeal.com is ideal for trading hard-to-ship items such as automobiles, furniture, pets, appliances, real estate and other “try before you buy” items, eliminating shipping costs and reducing fraud. Buyers can browse or search for items using LiveDeal’s easy-to-use web interface, seeing what’s available locally first and nationwide second. LiveDeal also serves the national market for sellers looking for a more cost-effective marketplace to list multiple items for sale in a single click and without the burden of listing fees. For more information, visit www.livedeal.com.
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Media Contacts:
Kathy Wilson
408-855-9988
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