LiveDeal.com, one of the leading free local
online classifieds sites in the U.S., today launched its Canadian counterpart,
LiveDeal.ca (LiveDeal Canada), through a joint venture with Torstar
Corporation, and its online unit, Torstar Digital. This venture will provide
Canadians with a revolutionary new online marketplace to buy and sell goods on
a local and national level. LiveDeal.ca breaks down online shopping barriers
by enabling buyers and sellers to meet in person and “try before they buy,”
which eliminates prohibitive shipping costs and reduces fraud. LiveDeal.ca is
especially ideal for buying and selling bulky or big-ticket items such as
furniture, cars, pets and major appliances.
“Local e-commerce is the next wave of the Internet, and LiveDeal.ca and
Torstar are leading the charge, leveraging the power of the Internet to
enhance classifieds. It is reinvigorating the category and will change the way
that Canadians shop online,” says Simon Jennings, General Manager of
LiveDeal.ca, who joins the online classifieds site from Yahoo! Canada with
more than 15 years of experience in Internet and online advertising
innovation. “LiveDeal.ca empowers Canadians with robust local classifieds and
e-commerce functionality previously unavailable. The result is that buying and
selling goods in Canada on the person-to-person level is now faster, easier
and more cost effective than ever before.”
The Advantages of Local Online Buying and Selling
Unlike other Canadian online classified sites that are limited in scope
or capabilities, LiveDeal.ca offers Canadians an e-commerce marketplace for
virtually every town in Canada. Canadians can access LiveDeal.ca through
www.livedeal.ca or through the online classified sites of The Toronto Star,
the Hamilton Spectator, The Record and the Guelph Mercury, which are powered
by LiveDeal.ca.
Whether living in a major urban area or small rural town, LiveDeal.ca
lets Canadians tap into their local market in seconds and save the expense and
effort of selling on a national level. Consumers simply log on to the site and
register by providing basic contact information. Sellers can begin listing
items for sale with photos and detailed descriptions in just a matter of
minutes, then watch the email offers come to them. The process is just as
simple for buyers. They can browse or search for items in a particular city,
province or postal code, or reach out on a national scope if they so choose.
LiveDeal.ca is also the only nationwide online classified site to offer email
alerts that notify buyers once an item they seek becomes available on the
site.
“In our judgment, LiveDeal is simply the very best online classified
service there is. It combines the best of the Internet and e-commerce with the
best of online classified advertising,” says Tomer Strolight, president of
Torstar Digital. “Torstar remains committed to providing Canadians with
value-added community and advertiser services that complement our print and
online news services. Classifieds advertisers in our daily newspapers will now
receive unprecedented additional reach through LiveDeal.ca, at no additional
cost.”
Canadians are among the world leaders in Internet usage, with the 4th
highest level of broadband Internet penetration in the world, but this
usage doesn’t always translate into online sales. Canadians like to research
and ‘window shop’ online but buy offline. LiveDeal.ca brings together buyers
and sellers in local markets, avoiding shipping costs and hassles, and gives
consumers an opportunity to check out the merchandise before they purchase it.
“LiveDeal’s mission is to do local online classifieds better than anyone
else by combining the best of the Internet and e-commerce with the best of
person-to-person transactions,” says Rajesh Navar, founder and CEO of LiveDeal
and a former senior member of eBay’s start-up engineering team. “Since our
official launch last year in the U.S., LiveDeal.com has become a favorite
marketplace for buyers and sellers all over the country with more than one
million unique users visiting our site each month.”
“We are excited to be working with Torstar Digital to bring our local
e-commerce marketplace to Canada as the first step in our international
expansion plan with the launch of LiveDeal.ca,” said LiveDeal VP Corporate
Development Steve Harmon. “LiveDeal’s platform is ideal for media partners
worldwide.” According to comScore Media Metrix, the U.S. site LiveDeal.com is
consistently one of the top 10 most visited online classified sites on the Web
and has ranked ahead of Yahoo! Classifieds, among others, for attracting a
greater number of unique visitors over the past three months (August-December
2005). Since its official launch in the U.S. in November 2004, listings have
grown by 300 percent to feature more than 400,000 items daily worth more than
$3 billion.
