In the beginning it was eBay. And God said: “Let there be a thousand announcements.” And Milanuncios.com was done. And God saw that it was good, and then he allowed Wallapop to become popular and megacool in second-hand eCommerce. More or less, this could be the (abbreviated) story of the Genesis of the second-hand online market in Spain. afghanistan embassy canberra email address , Because it turns out that Milanuncios is a survivor of the Internet Jurassic. Created by Ricardo García in 2005, practically out of nowhere, without making much noise and (let’s be honest) with a website that left (and leaves) a lot to be desired in terms of design, it was gaining market share.
He devoured secondhand.es until he practically took it off the market. And it is capable of tuting eBay and indulging in signing its former CEO in Spain in 2011. Many years later, which in terms of eCommerce is a geological era, it claims to be the most searched classified ad website on Google in Spain.
Not long ago we started to see Milanuncios advertising on TV, but its story is that of the little ant that little by little has taken over an important part of the anthill. The great milestone: in 2014, Schibsted Classified Media (SCM) Spain, owner of Infojobs, Fotocasa, Coches.net … and that previously had taken over the ashes of Segundamano (now Vibbo), bought Ricardo his website for 50 million euros, plus a shareholding that some sources value at another 50 million. There is nothing.
History of Wallapop: how the Spanish leader of second-hand apps was born
How Milanuncios works
If you enter the web or the mobile app of Thousand Ads you will not find almost anything that you expect in a typical eCommerce website. No great photos, no offers, no promotions. A list of categories, a search engine and little else. A web design that hasn’t changed much since 2005, which could be classified as slightly below “ancient” and slightly above “prehistoric,” but it works. And boy does it work.
Milanuncios is a website of classified ads in the style of the antediluvian pages of paper newspapers, but on the Internet. There are no product sheets or many fields to fill in to place an ad, you can sell but also buy, look for or offer work, services, organize your bachelor party or make an appointment with a psychic. There is literally everything.
In the Wallapop style, Milanuncios.com does not act as an intermediary in transactions. You put your ad, your contact telephone number and / or your e-mail and interested people get in touch with you. No more. Probably in it, in the simplicity of placing an ad and in the fact that advertising is free, lies the main key to its success.
Transactions on its website are carried out privately. In that sense, what is sold is a contact rather than a product, and then it is the seller, by phone, e-mail or in person, who is in charge of selling the product to you. In fact, the space available to describe the product is quite limited, and there is no standardization of characteristics in an Amazon or eBay-style product sheet. You can’t zoom in on a photo to see product details or any of those things we take for granted on an eCommerce website. And, for its users, it is not necessary, apparently.
2020: Milanuncios Express and Milanuncios Pro
In June 2020, the platform underwent one of its greatest evolutions: the launch of a new function to pay for items and manage their shipment without having to leave home. The new service is called Milanuncios Express and is possible thanks to an agreement with Socialpay, a company specialized in secure payment solutions between individuals, and through partners such as SEUR.
Thanks to this service, once a sale is made through the platform, a courier will pick up the package at the address indicated by the seller and deliver it to the buyer’s home, always without maintaining physical contact and complying with the protocols of prevention established by SEUR to protect its distributors. The payment gateway holds the purchase money until the item is delivered and the buyer verifies that everything is correct.
A few weeks later, Milanuncios Pro, a new ad serving and management tool for professional sellers, was launched. USA Business , Aimed especially at small and medium-sized companies, in a scenario in which SMEs find it necessary to adopt new digital transformation processes to better reach their potential customers, this tool offers more management possibilities to reach almost 3 million users with the that Milanuncios tells.
