The collapse of Mocality and the rebranding of Dealfish to OLX is due to too much hype on their platforms rather than their significance, according to Junk Mail’s managing director Felix Erken.
Erken made this remark yesterday Mobile Web East Africa in Kenyan capital Nairobi as he presented how Junk Mail, a South African online classified platform, has entered Kenya and Nigeria, the ground where Mocality, Kalahari and Dealfish met their demise.
Junk Mail has not invested much money in entering the Kenyan market, but rather made strategic partnerships to push the product forward. This is in contrast to Mocality and Dealfish who launched serious media campaigns to get users and their products going in the region.
Junk Mail has made a strategic partnership with one of the top websites in Kenya, CapitalFM.co.ke, and is now the official classifieds for the radio website.
Such strategic partnerships have seen its product being used greatly for jobs and classified advertising. The platform also attributes its growth to having user-generated content in terms of posting of classifieds.
Mocality closed its Kenyan and Nigerian businesses due to what was termed as lack of profitability, as did e-commerce site Kalahari.
Junk Mail started in 1992 by offering free classified ads for individuals, disrupting the normal paying ads in the newspapers.
