Type of site Classifieds Website www.gumtree.com | Owner eBay Registration Optional | |
Slogan(s) Opportunity Starts on Gumtree Launched March 2000; 17 years ago (2000-03) | ||
Gumtree.com, known as Gumtree, is a British online classifieds and community website. Classified ads are either free or paid for depending on the product category and the geographical market. As of November 2010, it was the UK's largest website for local community classifieds and was one of the top 30 websites in the UK, receiving 14.8 million monthly unique visitors according to a traffic audit in 2010. Gumtree is the #1 classifieds site in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and Singapore.
Contents
History
Gumtree was founded in March 2000 by Michael Pennington and Simon Crookall as a local London classified ads and community site, designed to connect Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans who were either planning to move, or had just arrived in the city, and needed help getting started with accommodation, employment and meeting new people.
In May 2005, Gumtree was acquired by eBay's classifieds group, for an undisclosed sum. At the time of the acquisition, Gumtree already was available in multiple cities in a number of countries including the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Canada, Australia (Gumtree Australia), New Zealand, South Africa and Hong Kong.
On 7 January 2016, Gumtree's rebranding was published on their website and respective apps.
Market expansion
International expansion beyond the UK include:
Features
While the largest category of advertisements on Gumtree is "goods for sale," the site is also home to around 200,000 motors listings across the UK at any one time.
Gumtree has an extensive social media presence on Twitter and Facebook, with 35,000 and 471,000 followers, respectively. Gumtree uses social media to communicate news and information about the brand as well as launch competitions and promotions.
Although predominantly a free listings website, Gumtree provides users with paid promotional options for increased advert visibility. Users can also pay to "bump up" their adverts in the listings.
In more recent years, Gumtree has extended its service to business customers. The site began selling classified advertising packages to companies looking to post multiple job vacancies and properties.
In 2013, Gumtree extended bulk classifieds listings accounts to car dealers. In 2010, Gumtree launched its Gumtree Media website to publicise its services to potential business clients. The site showcases paid classified listings options as well as display advertising on the Gumtree site.
Scams
The Guardian reported that flat-hunters fall victim to a costly rent deposit scam using Gumtree. A London landlord was taking advantage of prospective tenants by taking deposits and then charging a large amount to check references.
In April 2008, The Journal reported that "Gumtree scams continue to target international students", where students continued to be targeted by fraudsters offering to rent nonexistent flats by using this site.
On 2 October 2008, a BBC News Investigation claimed, "Prospective tenants are being conned out of thousands of pounds in an elaborate Internet scam using Gumtree".
In 2008, Gumtree was featured on BBC Watchdog for being a medium of money transfer scam. The flat hunters are the victim of this scam. Gumtree claims that it is an "industry-wide problem that affects a small number of their users".
On 9 November 2009, BBC News warned over bogus landlord scam on Gumtree.
The UK's National Fraud Authority's Actionfraud issued a warning on 30 July 2010: "Scam targets potential tenants on Gumtree. A number of would-be tenants have lost money after replying to a new wave of bogus adverts for rental accommodation on the website, Gumtree".
Sponsorships
In 2015, Gumtree became the official sponsor of Big Brother and all of its associated media.
In popular culture
In June 2013 an advert was posted on Gumtree offering a rent-free accommodation to a lodger that would be prepared to dress and act like a walrus. The advert was shared around various sites such as BuzzFeed and Mashable and caught the eye of Hollywood director Kevin Smith, who used the ad as his inspiration for his 2014 film, Tusk, a story of an evil scientist who plans to permanently sew a human into a walrus suit.