Buying and selling cars in South Africa is big, big business.

Everyone knows that News24 is the most visited site in the country, racking up 7,3 million unique browsers in January alone, but you might not know that Gumtree South Africa sneaks in at second.

Their January stats are also pretty staggering, with 6 378 156 uniques, which puts them well ahead of Times LIVE in third, on 3,9 million.

That info comes via audience data specialists Effective Measures, who have just released their findings for last month, but we’re going to focus on the automotive website market below.

Gumtree tops the Effective Measures list of automotive websites, with over 1,9 million unique browsers looking at vehicles and motorcycles in January, beating out the likes of AutoTrader and Cars.co.za.

As you can imagine, Johan Nel, Director-GM of Gumtree South Africa, is pretty stoked:

“This month’s figures are reflective of a growing and healthy online economy…Internet use is intrinsically linked with self-empowerment and opportunity and any boom in usage represents new possibilities and development, particularly for entrepreneurs. We’re particularly pleased with the growth in our automotive section, a focus area for us in terms of investment and attention that we will continue to develop in 2018.”

Thousands of dealerships and professional sellers use Gumtree to market their automotive stock, while Nel says there are thousands of informal traders making a living buying and selling cars as a sideline on the site.

“We have identified tens of thousands of informal traders in this space alone, but the informal economy is much larger and more lucrative than even we can gauge. All indications are that 2018 is going to be a bumper year for ecommerce and recommerce and we’re looking forward to supporting the individuals and small businesses that make use of our site,” says Nel.

I like that “ecommerce and recommerce” line, and it plays into the idea of the side hustle.

If you’re trying to pull in a little extra cash on the side, you’re doing it wrong – more on that here.

Your full top 10 below, in case you were wondering:

See y’all on the road.

[source:gumtree]