I would argue that the success of CL is due to two things: the simplicity of the site, and the local orientation.
Anyone who has used a computer at all can pretty much figure out Craigslist. No fancy graphics, blinking lights, no extraneous advertising, no special plugins needed, etc. The fact that it's free helps, but thousands of free "for sale" sites exist and none have succeeded like CL. Yes people do search nationally, despite the fact that CL (actively) discourages it. But for the most part it's very easy to list something for sale and get local buyers, or search for something and find local sellers. You don't have to screw around with packing and shipping the item, and it's just much more comfortable than ebay. You're free of course to use CL however you want. Most people use it locally. Allan On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:38 -0700, "Alex Chamberlain" <apchamberl...@gmail.com> wrote: > But I don't give a fig who their target user is, and neither should > any of us. Their de facto user is everyone, all over the country, > because the web site has been so successful that it's stolen massive > market share from sites that are explicitly nationally-oriented like > TraderOnline and eBay (yes, I know eBay owns a substantial stake in > CL, but that's just because eBay mgmt realized that CL was stealing > their business and wisely played the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em > card). When you put an ad on CL for anything of substantial value, > you're reaching a national or at least regional audience; they > couldn't make money from commercial users otherwise. (A good example: > CL's also stolen market share from job search sites like Jobdango.com > and Monster.com; tech companies who advertise on sfbay.craigslist.org > for engineering jobs in Silicon Valley know full well they're going to > get reponses from all over the country; in fact, they count on it, > since it makes their lives easier to only have to advertise in one > place. I am quite sure it's the same for dealers of specialty cars.) > > Alex > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
