| Why Does Kijiji Have a Pets Category? | |
We understand the concern we have received regarding allowing the sale of pets on our site. While we are not insensitive to these concerns, we have opted to continue offering a Pets category. There are numerous reasons why we have chosen to do so:
We don’t want to take the easy way out.
We chose to work with the industry to provide a safe channel for this, rather than the easy solution, which is to close the section – driving traffic to another website that might not care at all. Our partners in Animal Welfare prefer this.
We work very hard to discourage impulsive, irresponsible, and illegal trade in pets.
We have developed a variety of educational measures to encourage responsible buying and selling of pets. Personal inspection is crucial when buying a pet and with our education we guide our users asking the right questions and discouraging impulsive buying of pets (see our
Pets Code of Conduct and our
Guide to Responsible Pet Adoption). For selling a pet, we have strict posting policies that you can find in our
Pet Posting Rules.
Moreover we have introduced an insertion fee to post a dog or cat ad to discourage impulsive selling of dogs or cats. This measure also provides Kijiji with additional vendor information that can assist our actions against illegal pet vendors in collaboration with our partners, the animal welfare organisations. Finally we have dedicated support staff that manually reviews ads that are reported to us. We work together with our engaged community and reputable animal welfare agencies across Canada to help us moderate the category and prevent, detect and discourage illegal pet vendors. By contacting us and/or flagging ads, our users can notify us of any issues or concerns.
We continue to work very closely with thought leaders in this industry.
Over the last several years, we have built strong, working relationships with many Animal welfare groups across the country. Some of these groups include: the OSPCA, Calgary Humane, Nova Scotia SPCA, New Brunswick SPCA. Some of the things we have done together are:
- Worked very closely to identify users of concern, prevent possible puppy mills, or unscrupulous breeders. We have also helped in the prosecution of those who have been charged.
- They have helped us develop stronger policies to prevent abuse, as well as provided or helped build great education pieces for our website/users.
- Kijiji has attended numerous conferences put on by these groups and others; to pursue possible partnerships, and see how we can be “part of the solution”.
- We've partnered with/sponsored a number of events.
We encourage adoption.
We also have partnerships that allow us to have a large number of shelter pets pushed to our site automatically. Users can filter these to view Shelter pets only. This allows us to encourage adoption as a first option.
We are very proud of the changes we have made, and the work we have done with animal welfare groups across the country. We continue to encourage not only animal welfare, but ALL of our community to reach out to us with concerns or questions. It is our top priority to offer a safe channel for the re-homing of animals online.
