Things you didn`t know about BLOCKET

have been given top priority since the start
and these are the most important ingredients
in Blocket’s recipe for success.
All additional development is aimed at
making life simpler for both buyers and
sellers. With users located all over Sweden –
young and old, Internet veterans and beginners alike – Blocket is designed to be used
by as many people as possible.
To ensure a high standard of content,
all advertisements are checked manually.
Strong emphasis is also placed on keeping the site and its technology in good
condition, which is a huge task with the
site’s approximately one billion page
requests per month.
R ece n t de v e l op me n t s
T he m a r k e t
Over the past ten years, the buy-and-sell
market for second-hand goods has changed
dramatically. Advertiser publications and classified ads in the daily press have today been
largely replaced by internet advertising, which
is often both easier and more effective.
Blocket has existed since the Internet first
started and has grown rapidly from being
a regional marketplace for »miscellaneous
products« to becoming Sweden’s biggest buyand-sell market. The company’s impact is now
so huge that, for many people, the concept of
buy-and-sell is synonymous with the Blocket
website.
Competition in the buy-and-sell market is
tougher than ever and new players are constantly popping up. Despite this, Blocket has
succeeded in strengthening its position from
year to year and continues to grow. Today, 94
percent of the Swedish population is aware of
Blocket and more than every other Swede has
bought or sold something on the Blocket site
(source: Synovate, November 2008).
Blocket is not just the biggest buy-andsell marketplace in Sweden but also the
country’s third largest website. The average
visitor accesses the site about three times per
week and many people go to Blocket not only
because it is useful but at least as often for
entertainment.
A chie v e me n t s
Blocket is one of Sweden’s most successful
Internet businesses. Within a decade, the
company has grown from being a one-man
4 2 s u p e r b r a n d s
operation to being Sweden’s third largest
site. This has been achieved by consistently
prioritizing the user’s needs and wishes.
Blocket is the first choice when consumers buy and sell second-hand goods. And
the Swedes are certainly active sellers on
the second-hand market. During 2008,
they advertised goods on Blocket with a
combined value of 193 billion kronor. That
was an increase of 20 percent on 2007 and
corresponds to approximately six percent of
Sweden’s BNP.
Blocket is today one of the most profitable
companies within the Schibsted Group and
the concept has been successfully exported
to Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Malaysia, the
Philippines and Greece.
Hi s t ory
Blocket was founded in 1996
in Fjälkinge, outside Kristianstad, by Henrik Nordström.
The site was then a regional buyand-sell marketplace for the southern
region of Skåne and catered only for
private individuals. After a few years, the
site was expanded by offering buy-and-sell
advertisements to the whole country. Later,
companies were also given the opportunity
to advertise on Blocket.
Initially, it was free to advertise on the site.
But in 2001, it started to charge advertisers
for their ads via their telephone bill, a userfriendly system which is still used today. In
2003, Blocket was sold to the newspaper
Aftonbladet and is today wholly owned by Schibsted as a part of Schibsted Classified Media.
T he p roduc t
Blocket is a marketplace for buying and selling
new and second-hand goods. Nowadays you
can find just about anything on the site, from
porcelain goods costing a few kronor to houses,
cars and boats costing millions. On any given day
there are more than half a million advertisements
on Blocket of which about 70 percent are private
and 30 percent are commercial.
User-friendliness and high
quality
More and more people are buying
and selling second-hand goods. The Swedes
have discovered that this is good for their
wallets as well as for the environment. The
Internet is driving this trend as it has made
second-hand goods considerably easier to sell
as well as to buy. An increasing share of the
market and the demand has now shifted to the
Internet and this trend is expected to continue.
The future for Blocket continues to look
bright, but progressive measures are required
for the site to maintain its market-leading position. As a result, the site and new services are
developed continuously.
As a means of making it even easier to sell
and buy, Blocket has developed an application
for the iPhone mobile phone enabling the user
to see all of Blocket’s advertisements and to
place an ad directly from the phone, wherever
they may be.
In addition to the private market, a growing
number of companies are now using Blocket
as a means of gaining access to Sweden’s
largest marketplace. Commercial advertisements have become an increasingly important
market for the company and it is the fastest
growing category. As a result, Blocket is
developing services and business concepts
aimed at companies, but at the same time
the company is aware of how important it is to
remain focused on private users and private
advertisers.
M a r k e t ing
Blocket’s most important marketing channel is its own site, blocket.se. Its users and
satisfied customers who buy and sell are its
most important ambassadors and have had
a decisive influence on Blocket’s positive
development.
In the early development stages, TV was an
important channel for building brand awareness. Blocket was one of the first Internet
sites in Sweden to sponsor highly popular TV
formats such as Idol and Let´s Dance.
To maintain its strong position as Sweden’s
largest buy-and-sell market as well as inspire
more people to use Blocket, the company
works with a combination of sponsorship,
advertising campaigns, traffic optimization,
traffic building alliances and PR.
Br a nd va l ue s
Blocket’s business concept is to provide the
simplest, most effective and reliable marketplace for buying and selling in Sweden.
Its core values of simplicity, effectiveness
and reliability permeate all of the company’s
activities, from product and business development through to marketing and general
communication.
Simplicity is the foundation of the site. It
has to be easy to place an ad and easy to
search the advertisement database. Additional
services, marketing, layout and so on, are
all designed from the standpoint of the core
value, simplicity.
Effectiveness is one of the factors that has
made Blocket a market leader. Ten percent of
the items advertised by private individuals are
currently sold within two hours and six out
of ten items are sold within a week (source:
Synovate, November 2008). The broad and
huge range of products, the numbers of
visitors and the fact that the site is both local
and national are all contributing factors to
Blocket’s effectiveness.
Safe and reliable trading across the Internet
on Blocket is considered to be of the utmost
importance, and this aspect is addressed on
a daily basis. Among other things, Blocket’s
Customer Safety department holds seminars
for the police and local authorities and cooperates with consumers and the police in
investigations. Blocket also offers purchasing
contracts and secure payment solutions as a
part of its work to promote safe trade.
Things you didn't know about
BLOCKET
• Blocket is Sweden’s third largest website.
• More than every second Swede has bought
or sold something on Blocket.
• Ten percent of the items advertised by private
individuals on Blocket are sold within two
hours.
• The most frequent advertisers live in Norrbotten
and in Skåne.
• Every Blocket advertisement is checked
manually.
• The most expensive item advertised so far
on Blocket is a sailing yacht for 120 million
kronor.
s u p e r b r a n d s 4 3