Yago Paramo

Automotive Entrepreneur

Category: craigslist charging

CraigsList Changes

I wanted to gather a few thoughts about the 1st week in Craig’s List for the dealers. This is a near-perfect ad: 2010 Acura MDX 1) Up to 24 photos per vehicle. 2) No HTML (so no links, color text, etc) 3) Formatted text is available (lists, bold, larger font, etc) What would make this ad perfect (which we are working on as we speak): Adding the state disclaimer (DOC fee, etc). Adding a URL (can’t hotlink, so I have doubts about the value of this) Inventory view: http://bellingham.craigslist.org/search/ctd?userid=10808959 Notice that in the inventory view Craig’s List now identifies your dealer with an unique ID, in this case 10808959 Be careful having 2 companies or even an employee postings ads if you already have the entire inventory posted. Several dealers have called stating that their ads got put on hold for having the same VIN posted several times. The accounts (you as a dealer since they have your tax ID number) will be on hold for one year (this is the time that they have always used in the past … Continue reading

Is Craigslist’s charge change positive or negative?

For how we understand the world a “charge” a tax or any new form of payment can’t be hardly justified as positive but I think we need to look at where is CraigsList today and what could possibly happen once the change is implemented. The fact that CraigsList didn’t charge for postings made the flow of cars into their system a race for volume of postings. The dealers willing to invest the most time and or money seemed to have an advantage over the rest as their vehicles will show on the first 100 ads or they will take over a search. That race brought two problems; first it forced the rest of the dealers to either leave or also escalate their posting efforts. Dealers had to post more to remain relevant. But the resulting and second problem brought by this was that searches became less relevant and frustrating to consumers as a search for an “Audi A6″ will bring the same car from the sale dealer 45 times. Escalation of postings created a problem for customers-poor search results, a … Continue reading