Hey Friends!
Recently I was answering some questions on Quora and I thought that one of those questions deserved an entire post in Yclas. The Classifieds industry started a long time ago, around when newspapers went through channels such as classifieds for their publications to increase revenue via other sources or channels and invented classifieds for their publications.
Most people thought that classifieds wodiedead when the internet and online disruption center to our lives. But sites like Craiglist, reoriented the traditional classifieds market and created what we know nowadays the classifieds industry. After Craiglist, thousand, well million entrepreneurs have tried to disrupt this industry, some with luck and some without it.
Nowadays we have been talking about new industries that are disrupting online businesses. Those are, in fact, classifieds. I would say Classifieds is the Main Category and there are subcategories out there disrupting markets. But what are the subcategories and most important how much they worth?
- Sharing Economy
- Marketplaces
- Classifieds
Sharing Economy
This is industry aims to offer peer-to-peer deals by sharing something.
When thinking about sharing economy all of us knows Airbnb. Maybe we could give the honor to Airbnb for this words "sharing economy". Personally I think was one of the first sites to spread those words to world and work and focus on it.
But Airbnb is not the only one, we could mention lot of them, some of the pioneers with Airbnb were, from dog sitting DogVacay, home services like TaskRabbitride-sharing ring giants Lyft or Uber.
At this moment the sharing economy industry forecast 335bn worth by 2025. For those who are thinking to take bate to this cake you can start creating your Sharing Economy website with Yclas
Marketplaces
Marketplace differs from shareconomynmoy by allowing businesses and also people to sell something between them but not necessarily must be "shared".these these cases we could see subcategories of marketplaces depending their players. B2B, B2C or P2P. In this order I would like to give you some examples:
B2B: Worldwide known Alibaba is the largest marketplace place.
B2C: Amazon is also the best in this place. Amazon connects sellers with the customer is a great way and also sell their product and services.
C2C or P2P: Etsy fits in this category. People around the globe make craft products and sell them via Etsy.
In a recent study by Forbes, marketplaces will be worth Trillion by 2020. At YClas We recently launched our marketplace plugin, where you can create awesome marketplaces.
Classifieds sites
Classifieds is more as we all know them. Normally are generic sites with many categories and subcategories with 3 players involved: Admin, buyer and sellers. Buyers and sellers can businesses news or people.
A great example disrupting last year's Wallapop could set in this category. Wallapop connect sellers and buyers, normally people not business, nearby. But also big names are rocking these days: OLX, Quikr, Craiglist, Gumtree...
This is industry could reach 31 Billion by 2018 just in India. Imagine worldwide, we could bet at least 300bn up to 600bn worth.
What these markets actually look like in 2026: the reported numbers
The forecasts above were guesses made years ago. It is more useful to look at what the leading companies in each category reported for 2025:
| Category | Company | Reported figure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| B2C marketplace | Amazon | Third-party seller services: $52.8B in Q4 2025 alone, up 11% year on year. Total 2025 net sales: $716.9B | Amazon Q4 2025 results |
| C2C / P2P marketplace | eBay | $79.6B GMV in 2025 (up 7%), $11.1B revenue, 134M active buyers | eBay FY2025 results |
| C2C / P2P marketplace | Etsy | $10.46B Etsy-marketplace GMS in 2025, 86.5M active buyers (down 3.4%), 5.6M active sellers (down 1.5%) | Etsy FY2025 results, 19 Feb 2026 |
| Sharing economy | Uber | $193.5B gross bookings in 2025 (up 19%), 13.6B trips, 202M monthly active platform consumers in Q4 2025 | Uber FY2025 results |
| Sharing economy | Airbnb | 9M+ active listings, 5.5M+ hosts, $380B+ earned by hosts all-time, $15.6K earned by the typical US host in 2025 | Airbnb Newsroom, May 2026 |
| Local classifieds | Wallapop | 21M+ users, 100 million products uploaded | Wallapop About |
Some of the pioneers named above no longer exist on their own. DogVacay's site now just sends visitors to Rover (dogvacay.com). Etsy completed the sale of its resale app Depop to eBay in July 2026 (Etsy investor relations). Even the biggest marketplaces consolidate, and they rarely grow in a straight line. In 2025 the Etsy marketplace lost both buyers and sellers, while Depop, a younger and more focused resale app, grew its active buyers by 38%.
What this means if you are starting one
- The money is in the transaction, not the listing. Amazon's seller-services line and much of eBay's and Etsy's revenue come from fees charged on sales. If you can, take payment on your own site and earn a share of each sale, rather than relying only on listing fees.
- Supply comes first. A new marketplace needs a dense set of listings in one niche or one city before buyers have a reason to come back.
- Niche beats general. No newcomer will out-list eBay or Wallapop. Specialist marketplaces (machinery, horses, local services) win with filters, trust and a community the giants don't serve.
- Trust is the product. Reviews, verified profiles and secure payment matter more than design.
If you want to test a niche without building from scratch, Yclas includes reviews, featured listings, paid plans and on-site checkout with Stripe Connect, so sellers can get paid directly through your site.
It is your time!
Yclas was created as a platform to creclassesieds sites, and we continue offering this possibility. But we move it from just classifieds as a subcategory of Classifieds industry to the Main Category putting in our features the possibility to create sites focused on any of the above topics.
Making some numbers the Classifieds industry could worth 7 Trillion by 2025 and you can take a piece of this giant pizza by starting your own Classifieds site with our platform.
