A Newspaper That's Figured Out How To Compete With Craigslist?
from the slowly-but-surely dept
While there are still some newspapers who are oblivious to the Craigslist threat, it’s clear that some are finally figuring out that they need to compete. It was getting a bit tiresome to hear about newspapers claiming how they were “losing business” to Craigslist. They weren’t losing business, they were failing to keep it themselves by being unwilling to change with the market and compete. However, it appears some are starting to figure it out. The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting early success in their attempt to compete with Craigslist. Realizing that something needed to be offered for free, they’re allowing classified ads for free in a variety of categories if the product is less than $5,000. They’re also letting those ads show up both online and in the print edition — an area where they have an advantage over Craigslist. They are still charging for extras (longer runs, photos, better placement, etc.), and have found that they’re getting a lot more usage out of the classifieds. What they don’t say is what it’s meant in terms of revenue. However, if they had continued on the path of ignoring Craigslist, you can pretty much guarantee that revenue and usage would be decreasing.
Comments on “A Newspaper That's Figured Out How To Compete With Craigslist?”
No Subject Given
My local paper runs free classifieds every Wed for items you want to sell for less than $50. The downside is people respond by calling – and some people don’t let the fact that it is 6 AM get in the way of their quest for a $20 kids playhouse.
I turned off my cell phone, turned it back on at 8 AM, and sold it to the person that called at 8:01. I had about 20 voice mails from people that called prior to 8 AM.
No Subject Given
I never got how craiglist worked anyhow. Too Complicated to me.
Re: how newspaper companies can beat craigslist
Dear Users:
We just created a new classified software section on our website, which could be customized for newspapers. If any Newspaper company out there would like to use our software base for there newspaper web, please contact us with details as soon as possible so that we can schedule a business appointment as soon as possible.
nyc.chaimex.com
Thank You
Mr H Khalid
No Subject Given
We have had this in our weekend paper for years now. All items under $500 have can be listed free, if you want extra logos, or bolding etc you pay a small extra fee.
They also have an insert to this section full of paid advertisments from all the local computer stores, so its a huge cataloge thats nice to read every saturday morning. It even got so popular they started adding articles to the IT section.
Re: No Subject Given
The newspapers companies are a bunch of scammers just like the RIAA. Craiglists loosened the strangle hold they had on merchants for many decades. God bless the internet!
Anything is better than craigslist
Who wants the generic forms that don’t fit a community’s needs, the terrible unthreaded low-tech forums with no location specificity?
No Subject Given
I prefer to use the recycler
Re: GetVendors.com approach
How about instead of user going to advertisers in classified space (if it is paid then there are not that many of them and if it is free there is more garbage than useful ones..not to mention duplicates) interested vendors/service providers contact users..In this setting user gets better deal also in terms of both cost and quality..It removes the inefficiency in the process because there is conversation between only interested parties.. I think referral service approach from http://www.GetVendors.com approach is much more appealing
News and Review
The local News and Review offers free online ads like Craigs.
http://www.newsreview.com/gyrobase/Entry
Why everyone flocked to the internet with their advertisements.
Consider this. Do you think that ceo’s and business owners would have flocked tot craigs list and other sites if newspaper advertisements had worked? If owners had been getting 20 or nore leads from thier classified and display ads, many would have stayed with newspapers. There is room for everything in today’s society if it does what it suppose to do. But if you get only 2 leads out of an ad when you paid an outrageous amount of money for this ad, I ask you, what would you do? Newspapers became to big for their britches. They became mononopolies buying up everything in their path,catoring to their investors instead of their customers. When they became too big.Newspapers raised their prices too much too much. t example is the Chicago Tribune. Freedom of speech is a thing of the past too. Newspapers have deservingly been knocked down a couple of pegs. Now let’s see if they can learn from their mistakes and become more competitive taking their customers into consideration.