Kijiji Selling Animals

I've had my blog for so long now, I think I've talked about just near everything now - including Kijiji! When Kijiji first started here in Halifax, people in the animal rescue community got all up in arms - because we knew what it was going to be used for - and what would be happening - like what is happening right now with the Benoit's and Chapmans - looking for a clean way to sell their dirty, dirty product.

For those of you who don't remember - Kijiji was originally marketed as a "regifting site". There was originally an article announcing it's launch in the then Halifax Daily News - the article doesn't exist anymore, but the press release from Kijiji does - at Kijiji.ca's press release section - and it says:

Right gift, wrong person? Turn unwanted gifts into cash

Local online classifieds-style site turns unwanted gifts into cash
With the holiday season over, many Canadians are faced with the dilemma of what to do with a gift that may not be right for them. Did you receive a pair of skis, leather pants, or a piece of artwork that is not your taste? Would you rather have the cash instead?

Though well intentioned, gift-givers don’t always get it right. Once considered a taboo subject, re-gifting is gaining in popularity as Canadians try to figure out what to do with their unwanted gifts. In fact, two out of every three Canadians (67 per cent) receive at least one unwanted gift during the holidays1.

To turn these unwanted gifts into something more useful – cash – try Kijiji (www.kijiji.ca). As one of Canada’s leading online classified sites, Kijiji enables you to sell your unwanted gifts locally. Kijiji is free-of-charge and features a simple format that allows people in the same city to trade various goods and services. So if you’re looking to get rid of an unwanted gift or get a great deal on that special something that was not under your Christmas tree, consider Kijiji.

Kijiji has even created a new category, launching this week – "Right Gift, Wrong Person" – specifically for re-gifting items. Besides this category there are dozens of other categories on the site. Some of the most popular categories are "Clothing, Jewelry", "Art, Antique, Decorations, Collectibles", "Sports, Leisure, Bikes, Camping", "Computers" and "Electronics".

With Kijiji you can easily turn the wrong holiday gift into something you really want.

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About Kijiji

Kijiji, which means "village" in Swahili, is a group of classifieds-style web sites that offer a convenient, fun, and easy way for people in the same city to meet, trade, share ideas, and help each other out in areas such as housing, jobs, goods, and personals. Kijiji sites are currently available in more than 215 cities in 19 markets around the world.

Once Kijiji was launched - a lot of us sent emails to their support department - imploring them not to have a "pets for sale" section - and I wrote a blog post with my email to them there - it was in January of 2006 that this all went down - so Kijiji has been allowing local puppy millers and brokers to peddle their product unimpeded since then.

It's funny that anyone who dares try to post anything that actually points out WHO these people are, or the fact that Kijiji is ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN - are having their posts immediately deleted. That is very interesting, I think.

If you want to read my post from January 10, 2006 (and I wasn't the only person who wrote in, there were a lot of us who wrote in - I remember Janet Chernin, Tara Bayne, Netta Armitage, Lisa Davis, among others who all tried to have it shut down - it's here - "an Offshoot of Ebay is Selling Live Animals"