Follow-up: Kijiji sofa man answers questions

The biggest viral breakthrough this year on Kijiji is the French ad for a manly (ugly) sofa. Hundreds of thousands of hits later, OpenFile has tracked down the seller for a short Q&A:

Montrealer Eric Edström is the man behind the ad and OpenFile Montreal got a chance to ask him a few questions about it earlier today over the phone.

Why did you choose to write the ad the way you did?

It is so easy to lie on the Internet, where’s the challenge? Why not be brutally honest and cut the BS? I tried it and it did affect the sale... POSITIVELY!

When did you realize your post had attracted a lot of attention?

After I got a couple of phone calls, text messages and over 100,000 hits in 24 hours. I tried answering every email at first, but getting 500+ per day, I won’t be able to do it unless I get an assistant.

What kind of responses have you received?

French teachers wanting to use my ad in class, countless somewhat-depressed people claiming “I made their day”, ladies wanting to know if I was single, lots of people complaining about the general level of language used in classifieds and wanting to congratulate me on my writing. Some job offers too.

How many people made offers for the couch?

Many people wanted to buy it, even for more than $100, but it was sold after a couple of minutes before the whole phenomenon started.

This post was written by: Gord McCord

Gord McCord, webmaster at You Suck at Kijiji, makes fun of funny things on Kijiji. Do not take him too seriously. Also do not take yourself too seriously. Follow him on Twitter