Local marketplace Quicksales to close
Quicksales, a subsidiary of Carsales Ltd, is closing. The online marketplace is set to shut down on 30 July.
Ajay Bhatia, managing director for consumer at Carsales Ltd, said the move will allow the business to focus on its core offering, automotive listings, and allied verticals, including bike, boat, truck, caravan, farm machinery and construction equipment listings.
“Discontinuing Quicksales has been a difficult decision for all of us at carsales.com Ltd,” Bhatia told Internet Retailing.
“We fully appreciate what this means for our Quicksales customers and are working to help sellers transition to another marketplace solution.”
Bhatia said sellers will be able to easily download their transactional data and Qshop users, sellers who operate their own storefront on the site, will not be billed past their last invoice date.
“We believe the six-week closure period will enable them to transition easily,” Bhatia said.
Up against the global giants
The online marketplace space has become more crowded since Quicksales – then called OZtion – launched in 2005, as e-commerce leaders like Catch and Kogan have moved to supplement their retail offering with marketplaces and global giants like Amazon and Alibaba have entered the local market.
While the e-commerce sector as a whole grew 18.7 per cent in 2017, marketplaces on average grew 74.8 per cent, according to Australia Post’s annual Inside Australian Shopping Report.
This figure, however, is the average growth rate across all marketplaces, and Ben Franzi, Australia Post general manager for parcels and express services, declined to say which marketplaces are growing fast than others.
However, new research from Roy Morgan reveals that Ebay sees the most visits in an average four-week period by far of any marketplace in Australia, followed by Gumtree, Amazon and Kogan.com.
Quicksales did not appear on Roy Morgan’s list of the 15 most visited marketplaces.
Homegrown offering
Philip Druce and Kelvin Yip launched OZtion in 2005 as a dedicated online marketplace for the Australian market.
The business rose to prominence in May 2008, after Ebay announced it would no longer allow payments via money orders, direct deposits or personal cheques, leaving shoppers with just two options: cash on delivery and PayPal.
According to reports at the time, OZtion saw its sales grow 50 per cent as a result of the Ebay announcement, and shortly thereafter, Jumbuck Entertainment acquired the business for $2 million in cash and shares.
Carsales Ltd bought the site from Jumbuck in 2010 for $1.1 million and relaunched it as Quicksales. But despite its new moniker, the business seems to have failed to fully integrate into Carsales’ broader offering.
“Automotive is at the core of carsales.com Ltd’s DNA and remains our focus for the future,” Bhatia said.
“We want to ensure that all of our businesses deliver for our customers and reinforce our position as a world leader and Australia’s number one for automotive and allied verticals including boats, motorcycles, trucks and machinery.”
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jaye
I’m really sad that I spent 12 years promoting QS in the hope it would one day take off and it was all a waste of time.I did sell thousands of items there and I wish it would stay open.