The Craigslist Effect
Bei Poynter.org gibts regelmäßig Beiträge zum amerikanischen Classified Markt. Schließlich ist das ein riesiger Journalisten-Blog und die haben gehörig Angst vor Craigslist…
Posted by Steve Outing 2:16:38 PM
The Craigslist Effect
Classifieds trainer Janet DeGeorge reports that it’s not just newspapers that are changing their classifieds business models to reflect the free ads offered by Craigslist. Take a look at Yahoo! Classifieds.Recently, Yahoo! moved from charging $7.95 to $9.95 for private-party merchandise classified ads to free. It still charges for jobs, real estate/rentals, autos, and pets. (Craigslist charges nothing for those categories, except for jobs in a few big metro markets.)
Craigslist still has the advantage over Yahoo! Classifieds on its free ads, however. Yahoo! free ads run for seven days and can include a single photo and up to 200 characters of text; for a $9.95 premium, an ad runs 30 days and can include up to six photos and up to 1,950 characters of text. Craigslist free ads allow up to four photos, lots of text, and run for either 30 or 45 days. A paid Yahoo! classified does offer some things Craigslist doesn’t, such as priority placement in search results and links to your other classified listings.
Yahoo!’s switch to offering free ads mirrors that of newspapers, which increasingly are offering free ads for some merchandise categories (typically with a threshold for price of an item to qualify for a free ad, and limits on ad length, photos, and time of run).
DeGeorge, who offers classifieds executive training and consulting mostly to the newspaper industry, says she thinks Yahoo! is actually the biggest competitor to newspaper classifieds — especially since it now partners with Auto Trader and since it has a nice search engine.