Craigslist is about to cost actual money to list a car

RevRico said:

dculberson said:

dj06482 said:

Based on the local listings, CL will be dead soon. Numbers dropped from 2,000 listings to under 200 for cars and trucks by owner on our local site!

Another way to look at it: Craigslist went from making $0 to making under $1000 a week from those ads.

Then again, they're not hurting for income at all, they have 50 employees and annual revenue of about $700 million. Their costs other than payroll are almost nothing. I assume they did this $5 charge thing entirely due to the scammers and curbstoners.

Side note, I would love to have a business with $14 million in revenue per employee. Anybody have any ideas?!?!

$700 million in annual revenue? How? From what? Until this, weren't there only charges for real estate? 

I get that they're owned by eBay now, but I never understood how a free classifieds board could be profitable, especially without covering the site in click ads and pop-up garbage.

CL is actually one of the extremely rare edge cases where having a loss leader to gain massive market share can be leveraged to profitability. CL built a hub to host ads to sell virtually anything. They just need a small bit of bleed over from the free users and, all the while, the cost of bandwidth has been steadily lowering in price.

The0retical said:

Cooter said:

californiamilleghia said:

Who knows where this leads to...,

Kill the $5 fee , give you a couple a year free like eBay  , or add a $5 fee to other sections ......

I don't think it is coming back.  It was dying before this, and this is a near Photobucket level mistake.  People have decided to go elsewhere.

TBH, I personally have no issue with the fee itself, but this was the worst tme to implement it.  It should have been done years ago.

I'm going to politely disagree. I'm normally not one to defend Craigslist but here it is anyway.

Photobucket way over estimated they leverage they had. If PB had done something like throttling/denying access over X number of views per month then charged a $5/mo fee for unlimited views and removal of the branding I think they'd have gotten away with it. Yes, there would have been complaining and attrition, but it would have been nothing like the backlash they received when they basically tried extorting $400 a year to view anything hosted with them.

Craigslist was already facing mounting pressure for the numerous copycats, then Facebook jumped in with Marketplace. To differentiate themselves Craigslist needed a way to remove itself from the cesspool that was it's previous listings while still remaining a very cheap and way to offload cars. $5 a month, quite frankly, is a pittance compared to competitors. It's also still free to list other items on the site which arguably didn't suffer from the same issues as its auto listings. CL has already been charging for housing and job posts for quite some time.

I'd argue this, to a great degree, fixed many of the issues I had with the service, while foisting the bullE36 M3 onto the Facebook marketplace. There's always going to be those who believe because a service is on the internet it should be free. Those aren't the people CL is trying to capture.

I'd bet if you had tried to buy a car from CL in the last 2 weeks the experience would have been much better.

I have tried to buy cars in the last couple weeks from CL.  

Those cars aren't being listed on CL anymore.

In reply to RevRico :

eBay has no ownership stake. They bought an ex-employee's shares (against the other owner's wishes) and ended up selling them back to Craigslist years ago. Craig Newmark has always been the majority owner, and still is. He is massively wealthy off having founded Craigslist.

Craigslist charges for real estate, jobs, and now car listings. They have millions of ads up over 70 countries so even at $5/ad that adds up very quickly. The primary income is, I think, from housing listings. Lots - as in millions - of people find apartments through it.

I already know how to weed through the BS of buying on CL.  The cars I am looking for  are uncommon, unwanted, and usually cheap.  They aen't listed by scammers, and most of the scammer tricks are obvious.

In reply to Cooter :

I guess I poke at the $1500+ listings more so than the $250 listings.

I do agree that it makes a lot less sense when you're dealing with cars that are percieved to be worth scrap price.

In reply to The0retical :

These cars are listed from $1100 to $3200

In reply to Cooter :

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For me CL is still full of heavily depreciated luxury cars I occasionally mull over buying. The big change over the course of the last week is that users are actually listing a price, so the search function is worth a damn, plus they're now listing features and problems. As an added bonus the user base now seems to be able to piece a sentence together at least as poorly as I do.

The0retical said:

Cooter said:

californiamilleghia said:

Who knows where this leads to...,

Kill the $5 fee , give you a couple a year free like eBay  , or add a $5 fee to other sections ......

I don't think it is coming back.  It was dying before this, and this is a near Photobucket level mistake.  People have decided to go elsewhere.

TBH, I personally have no issue with the fee itself, but this was the worst tme to implement it.  It should have been done years ago.

I'm going to politely disagree. I'm normally not one to defend Craigslist but here it is anyway.

Photobucket way over estimated they leverage they had. If PB had done something like throttling/denying access over X number of views per month then charged a $5/mo fee for unlimited views and removal of the branding I think they'd have gotten away with it. Yes, there would have been complaining and attrition, but it would have been nothing like the backlash they received when they basically tried extorting $400 a year to view anything hosted with them.

Craigslist was already facing mounting pressure for the numerous copycats, then Facebook jumped in with Marketplace. To differentiate themselves Craigslist needed a way to remove itself from the cesspool that was it's previous listings while still remaining a very cheap and way to offload cars. $5 a month, quite frankly, is a pittance compared to competitors. It's also still free to list other items on the site which arguably didn't suffer from the same issues as its auto listings. CL has already been charging for housing and job posts for quite some time.

I'd argue this, to a great degree, fixed many of the issues I had with the service, while foisting the bullE36 M3 onto the Facebook marketplace. There's always going to be those who believe because a service is on the internet it should be free. Those aren't the people CL is trying to capture.

I'd bet if you had tried to buy a car from CL in the last week, I'd bet the experience would have been much better.

It could actually be ok for all involved.

Basically, CL is asking you to pay in order to remain an anonoymous seller - you don't need to list your real name, phone number, contact information, etc. CL is a firewall for those who want to sell without identification. And yeah, that meant a lot of scammy people - so perhaps this gets rid of most of the scammers.

FB uses the opposite tact, since all sellers have to have a profile (and FB is reasonably good about weeding out scammy profiles, relativel to its size). So at least buyers or sellers can check the profile of who they are communicating with to see if it seems legit. The lack of anonymity (granted, fake accounts can be made but it take a bit of effort), is what keeps things from getting *too* scammy I guess.

Obivously CL can't do that kind of thing easily, with a tiny staff. So fees are the only way to self-police vs. FB which actively weeds out fake accounts (with varying success). 

In any case looks like the two approaches coudl be the best of both worlds. 

I was looking for cheap volvos today, and there were almost none, then I noticed there were almost no cars under $500 today.

Then I noticed my volvo was not listing and went to relist it, and $5 charge.  Ah, that explains it. 

Where will all the cheap car listings go now? Fckbook no way.  

Since the charge took effect I’ve noticed fewer listings in general, but the ones that remain are of higher quality with actual pictures and grammar. I’m ok with this. $5 is really not that much. I spent more than that on a sandwich yesterday. I think it mostly makes the seller think twice about their listing

Held my breath and made a $5 car listing on CL.  FB won't let me access MP without friends.  Decided I'd rather pay $5 than friend people.

Read into that however you want.  

Most of the car buyers have no idea that CL is charging 5 bucks , 

They just see less cars to buy !

Lately noticed more of the usual deceiving trashy car lots on FB MP. Nice cars listed for “3000$“! Then click on it and its the down payment price and “come on down to slimy’s car lot!”

californiamilleghia said:

Most of the car buyers have no idea that CL is charging 5 bucks , 

They just see less cars to buy !

There is possibly a supply and demand price increase scenario.  Imagine a shopper who successfully bought a car 3 years ago on CL.  Today he goes to CL and there are less cars tro choose from.  Less supply could mean that increased prices will be met.  If that shopper is not savvy or unfamiliar with FB MP then what he is going to see for cars is either dealers or CL.  

Down to 89 vehicles last night under challenge budget by owner. Still, not bad enough to make me join the world of idiocy that is faceplace. 

John Welsh said:

californiamilleghia said:

Most of the car buyers have no idea that CL is charging 5 bucks , 

They just see less cars to buy !

There is possibly a supply and demand price increase scenario.  Imagine a shopper who successfully bought a car 3 years ago on CL.  Today he goes to CL and there are less cars tro choose from.  Less supply could mean that increased prices will be met.  If that shopper is not savvy or unfamiliar with FB MP then what he is going to see for cars is either dealers or CL.  

So far the cars on my local CL seem to be of a higher quality and lower price than before, although there are fewer listings overall. It's as if people who paid for a listing are motivated to sell.

I hope they soon charge extra money if your photo isn't oriented the right way.

Just paid $5 to list my car. Happy to do it as opposed to logging on facebook. 

The numbers are still way down, I was hoping picture quality would improve but it hasn't. As others have noted, the ads seem more complete and are written in a way that I can actually understand them. But we're still missing a ton of cars!

I saw one of my Mustang searches go from 51 hits to 9 when the renewal hit. Almost none have come back. It's only been a couple days so I am wondering how long it will take for the the cheap cars to come back and what the new quality floor will be. 

Will Marketplace be the new home for the cars too cheap to list on CL?

Well if this keeps up it will save me a pile of money.  I don’t do Facebook either,  so the vast majority of my impulse buys are,  or were, CL.

This might bring back the days of cars on the side of the road with "For Sale" signs. I would welcome that. Internet sales have ruined the "car hunt". The expanded market has driven up prices as well.

Of course this is coming from a guy who bought his RX7 off eBay...

I've got two cars listed For Sale concurrently on FB and paid the $5 for CL.  So far, getting calls on the CL cars, actual legit-sounding interested parties.  FB ad has been nothing but hot garbage, scammers, "WOOD U TRAID?" and bullE36 M3.  

Told Mrs. VCH last night, maybe CL's scheme was smart after all.  And I am seeing a better quality of car at more "reasonable" prices on my searches.  

It has been a while, and the majority of cheap cars have not come back.  some have.   

All the rx8 have disappeared and did not come back, particularly the ones asking $3k+ 

I am looking for a 9497 camaro to rob the front end sheet metal for a couple hundred bucks, and this is not going to be found anymore.

I am wondering if the cheap cars might go to the 'auto parts' section which is still free, but so far not really happening.

I posted this elsewhere.

Apparently the current strategy locally is to list cheap cars in the Auto Parts section as a part out (with overpriced parts) or "Whole car for $price, clean title"