Craigs List Ads No Longer Free

[B Jake Moran]

I don't know if anyone noticed but Craigs List is now requiring a $5 fee to place ads.  Just in the last 4 days, I have seen hundreds of cars previously on craigs list drop off.

I typically put my searches in as 1900 to 1981, Cadillac or fill in the blank.  Sometimes I use a service called AutoTempest. I also put similar search criteria in.  In either case, most of the cars that were there a week ago are no longer listed.

Including dealership ads were the dealer seemed to "add" a new "ad" every day driving me nuts. I have to guess CL has seen at least 50% or more of their free ads go away.   $5 is surely not much. I ponied up to get my 2000 Eldorado on CL.  Remember the old days when a newspaper classified would be $15 for two lines for 2-3 days? 

I personally am thankful they went this route. When something is completely free, it's sometimes not a good tool. Meaning you would see nearly worthless ads on CL with 1-2 poor photos and virtually no description, yet the car "might" be worth checking out. Now maybe a seller has to try a bit harder to sell a car if they will have to pay and provide yet another 3rd party with CC information.  Again, it's still really cheap to list a car, but when it's free, there is even less incentive to create an informative ad. 

 

I have seen some ads that have been on CL for four years simply vanish. In that regard, when I use search tools like Auto Tempest and type in criteria that would have yielded 40 + cars before, now I am seeing 5-6.  Meaning at least with free ads, a light was being shined into the dark corners of the hobby and cars of interest or curiosity were being offered for sale.  Will we see this cause another door to close on the hobby, where sellers simply say no to providing C.C. information to a ubiquitous 3rd party? 

 

Again, I was truly amazed at the drop off of car ads. I am sure if there were 100,000 ads on C.L. two days ago, now there are 40,000 or less. 

Edited April 23, 2019 by B Jake Moran (see edit history)

[John348]

Thanks for the heads up! I never had any luck with craigslist myself. It just seemed to attract way too many bottom feeders

[AzBob]

I am not seeing any fees for posting on my local Craigslist. Just to test, I reposted an old ad then deleted it. Nothing came up regarding a fee. 

 

 

All right, I am seeing the $5 now. It appears to be only in the Cars+Truck category. No fee in the Motorcycles category yet. And yes, I am seeing fewer vehicles come up in a search.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2019 by AzBob
Additional information. (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

 I noticed that as well.  I don't have any cars for sale so I hadn't realized they were charging but my search results went from 3 pages a day to 3 days worth on one page.  That would make sense.  

[B Jake Moran]

19 minutes ago, AzBob said:

I am not seeing any fees for posting on my local Craigslist. Just to test, I reposted an old ad then deleted it. Nothing came up regarding a fee. 

Just checked Prescott Cl and to place an ad in Cars for sale, is $5.   Not a big deal.  I put 2 ads on there (Des Moines CL) a week ago, and unlike in the past when you could ask to bring them to the top, I never got that option then this morning they had "expired" after one week.  Definitely a change, and all of those free ads, some running for several years, are gone.  We will see in the next few weeks if people "agree" it's still a good way to sell a car, and come back or just how cars will be marketed.

 

On Des Moines CL, typing in Cadillac 1900 to 1981, last week I had 9 hits.  This week - nada - none.   

 

 

[39BuickEight]

Great idea.  Will really help with the fake ads.

[MCHinson]

The fee is only for Used Car for sale ads. All other ads are still free.  

[Joe in Canada]

I never use CL only KIJIJI that is run by EBay. I sold two lathes on it Tuesday  but that was an exceptional day.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Joe in Canada (see edit history)

[Dave Mellor NJ]

They started charging for "Services Offered", skilled trades, last year. I used to run ads occasionally for electric side work. That was the end of it for me

[nick8086]

Me too..

 

auto roundup magazine is still free for one ad.. online..

 

 

[vermontboy]

I think tht it will prove to be good in the long run. It got rid of a lot of $5000 cars with $20,000 price tags already which is a good thing. 

[mercer09]

well ebay owns a portion of CL. Ebay ER is doing very well for a change.

[R Walling]

 I just ck'ed my CL and there are no cars that are trash on there any more. Only cars that either run or could be driven with little work.

 I guess the days of putting up the entire junk yard one at a time are gone.  🖖

[B Jake Moran]

2 hours ago, Roger Walling said:

 I just ck'ed my CL and there are no cars that are trash on there any more. Only cars that either run or could be driven with little work.

 I guess the days of putting up the entire junk yard one at a time are gone.  🖖

 

It will clear out all of the free ads. Then, there will be a lull and we will see if some of the cars come back, trickle in or are gone forever.  The $5 gets you 30 days.   I know it was abused by some.  I saw a 57 Buick Super 2 door hardtop on my Iowa craigs lists for 3 + years, never a reduction in price and any communication with the seller resulted in a rude response.  I was actually amazed he remembered to keep renewing it for 3 years.  

 

The dealers were the worst.  Or some sellers that would put the same car same ad on a CL 10 times.  But, as I mention, they will go in and see their ads ended, and then go to renew and see the $5 charge. In 4 weeks, we may see many cars filled in, but not all.  Then, I think there might be some market correction in that asking prices will drop, not be so unreasonable.  As others have said, there was plenty of fishing on CL because it was free.  Why not ask $15,000 for a $2,000 car and see if you can nab someone?

[auburnseeker]

They may have shot themselves in the foot though.  It takes buyers and sellers to make a marketplace.  If I know not much is posted on there I'll stop looking.  Regardless of the quality of the car some people are cheap and won't pay the 5.00 or may be the type of guy that doesn't pay for anything on line out of fear of losing their identity or getting ripped off.  You will lose that segment of people listing,  often the type if guys we bought from. 

[Peter S]

Their competition, Facebook Marketplace, is free. I think Facebook could deliver a knockout blow with a better search engine for Marketplace. 

[Xander Wildeisen]

If you are into buying and selling. You will still look at CL. Just like you will still look at other sources. Fewer cars listed means yours will stand out. If ads were free, and now 50% of the ads are gone. The company is making more money from the other 50%, than it has ever made. Some guy named Jim will start a Jim's list, and it will be the next best thing. After a few years Jim will charge $7.50, because Craig is getting away with $8.95 now. This will cause a lot of anger in the car world. A guy named Bernie will start Bernie's list. And pay car owners $5.00 to list their cars. And in peoples excitement/joy, and still having a lot of anger towards Jim and Craig for what they did. Everyone will flock to Bernie's list. What no one knows is, Bernie put  some legal wording in his "Terms of use" section. That most people failed to read in their joy/excitement. This allows Bernie to take ownership of their cars. People do catch on, and protest by listing old manure spreaders and Yugo's. This forces the shut down of the site.

[countrytravler]

I have great results with CL. Probably did over 100k in sales for the last 10 years. And have bought cars at great deals. 5 will not change for me.

Edited April 24, 2019 by countrytravler (see edit history)

[28 Chrysler]

The cars are just moving to different sections.  Under "barter" the shadier  car lots are advertising For Sale or Partial Trade.

The little guys selling 10 year old cars on the side are listing all over C.L,. under antiques, car parts,  rant and raves etc.

[60FlatTop]

Back at the turn of the century I started making websites with HTML or XML and used Cute FTP to build and update. At one time, until I got caught I was creating a Apache directory to host my own pictures for Ebay sales. I was getting half a million hits with basically a hobby account.

This year I am setting up some user accounts for MySQL databases. I have to revamp everything. I am shifting to Cpanel and using PHP to interface browsers. This is going to treble my basic costs. And I may get an increase if I decide to shift my hosting to Microsoft Azure. All that stuff costs more.

 

Do you ever look at the piles of stuff you have accumulated (you know, the piles that fall over when you try to get something) and think "I'd sell it all for $1 per item and be happy" Those small amounts do build up.

 

To Craigslist, I haven't had much experience with bottom feeders. They already have what I am selling. I just ask more because of the better pictures, cleaning the stuff off, not leaving air cleaners on the seat or trash on the floor. Oh yeah, the big one, I haven't sold a car that was sunk into the ground, but if I did I would move it before taking pictures.

 

PS: That finger point for emphasis is not just a Bernie Sanders thing, all Bernies do it.

Edited April 24, 2019 by 60FlatTop (see edit history)

[B Jake Moran]

1 hour ago, Peter S said:

Their competition, Facebook Marketplace, is free. I think Facebook could deliver a knockout blow with a better search engine for Marketplace. 

Peter S -

You are probably correct but here is my issue - I hate Facebook and social media in general. I have tried to join Facebook and fail. I understand from my wife I am on, but when I go to "sign in" I can't.   CL has no entrance requirement.  A fairly large sampling of CL ads were put there by Millennials for their aging parents or grandparents that have little use for social media. 

 

A Reatta forum member posted a rare Reatta for sale from Lansing Michigan "Facebook marketplace."  I went in and tried to find it and failed miserably. CL however, is easy to access, search and find -  or it was in it's glory years.  I have no issue with the $5 charge, but if Facebook Marketplace is the next free marketplace, I think it's traffic will not reach CL traffic. 

[auburnseeker]

I just use the facebook marketplace under my wife's account she set up to show pics of the kids.  We don't share anything else about our life on there.  Just made it easier for relatives to see pics of the kids without trying to email them all to them which half the time couldn't be opened.  

I find actually almost as much stuff on there now as Craigslist and that even includes the stuff craigslist still allows you to sell for free.   If they refined their search like Craigslist did,  I think they would see a huge hit. 

If it is owned by ebay,  then the fees explain it.  Ebay is like the Gov't they didn't see a way to impose a tax/ fee on anything they didn't like.  Even it it was morally wrong,  like tacking on fees to shipping that is at cost so the seller loses and not refunding fees when sellers refund overage of shipping. 

I also didn't mid wading through the junkers.  Really how long did it take to run through 3 pages of ads?  Often I found something intriguing and I'll bet you something you won't see listed any more.  It's amazing how even the tiniest charge will make people think twice.  Just look at the porta cans at Hershey.  I'll gladly tip the guy .50 or even a 1.00. to use them but I bet there are guys that have a hard time parting with that shiny nickel even when they really have to go. 

[60FlatTop]

18 minutes ago, auburnseeker said:

I bet there are guys that have a hard time parting with that shiny nickel even when they really have to go. 

 

Bib overalls with a snap open leather change purse in the bib pocket. It was one of them sitting in the Chocolate field annex that stopped me in my tracks. I thought "That guy can't have a single red corpuscle in his whole body!"

 

Grandpa Jim O'Brien used to say "A fool and his money soon parted, paid a nickle to something, something, and only something else" How did that go....

[Matt Harwood]

Bernie, I would pay $5 just to continue to see your posts here. You are one of the AACA's hidden gems with equal doses of wisdom, humor, and plain old WTF? that I love. Keep doing it, good sir!

[Grimy]

6 minutes ago, 60FlatTop said:

 

Bib overalls with a snap open leather change purse in the bib pocket.

The snap-open leather change purse wore out and has been replaced by a squeeze-to-open soft plastic change purse

[Xander Wildeisen]

I do not have a finger pointing picture. There was one at the funeral services for my grandfather.(he was a WW2 Army Vet) Photo was of him pointing, strange picture to have sitting there. I had never seen it before. My Aunt is a DAR member, so was my grandmother. My Aunt said she picked the picture to have there. Father Navy, Uncle Navy. Me, just a beer drinking car guy.  Picture was a little different then your picture Bernie. Strange stuff. What a story out here. 

[Harold]

I have a driver/beater that I have to sell and it bothers me a lot to have to pay for an ad on Craigslist that was formerly free.  The way I see it, you pay $5.00 for a 30 day ad that is 6 pages back in a couple of days.   It will have practically no exposure at that point.  If they want to charge for ads, there should be a 'refresh' button so you can go to your ad and 'top post' it every few days.

 

On a related topic,  where is a good place to post a free car for sale ad besides Auto Round Up and Facebook Marketplace?

[mercer09]

Facebook Marketplace is the next free marketplace, I think it's traffic will not reach CL traffic. 

 

It is whooping CL's A.............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the younger people prefer it.

 

Harold- list your car for free on CL- just put it in the auto parts section............ I do it all of the time.

[JamesR]

They say it's a bad idea to give away free kittens or puppies, and it may work that way with online ads, too. I can't remember if it was cl or ebay, but there was a guy who thought his mid fifties Ford convertible was worth $30,000 even though he couldn't be troubled to brush the dirt off or pull it out in the driveway to take the photos. I understand there are elderly folks who are physically unable to do what it takes to make a car presentable, but if the car's worth 30k, then it may be worth 20 bucks to pay some neighbor kid to back it out of the garage, wash it and take a half a dozen cell phone photos.

 

Just kind of a basic sales philosophy: If you want buyers to believe your car is worth $30,000, then you should act like you believe it's worth $30,000. Instead, the philosophy of many sellers seems to "there might be some rich idiot out there who'll buy it." I was looking at completed auctions on ebay classics and most of them aren't selling.

[Harold]

2 hours ago, JamesR said:

I was looking at completed auctions on ebay classics and most of them aren't selling.

And some cars sell over and over.  What's up with that?

[auburnseeker]

14 minutes ago, Harold said:

And some cars sell over and over.  What's up with that?

Those cars that sell over and over are one of two cases,  either a shill bidder or parties that use ebay as a game and aren't serious buyers.  As a seller I will tell you alot of people don't pay for a variety of reasons and some never have any intention of paying before even bidding.  The problem is ebay doesn't want to hurt a Buyer's feelings so they do very little if anything to make buyers pay up.  I sell alot of $3 to $10 items on there.  Last I checked I had 9 pages of items not paid for totaling nearly $3000.  Does that give you an idea of how bad things really are for sellers on ebay?  We have no real way to inflict pain or get buyer's accounts suspended that repeatedly stiff sellers.  Yeah I still have my merchandise but ebay collected a fee on an item that never actually sold.  It ain't sold until it's paid for. And remember anything a seller does can be met with negative feedback. 

[ejboyd5]

Sounds like a bunch of sailboaters who believe that because the wind is free everything else should be free as well.

[Brass is Best]

14 hours ago, Harold said:

And some cars sell over and over.  What's up with that?

 

Sometimes folks win the auction and then their mother, wife, husband, boyfriend, priest, witch doctor, dog, cat, goldfish, teddy bear, buddies in the car club, buddies at the bar, bar tender, or union rep tells them not to buy it. Because they have no money and shouldn't have been bidding anyways. 

[auburnseeker]

Here is a classic example from last night.  My top sale.  Someone won a Dealer album for 342.00.  A very good bid.  They then paid for it.  Great finally a decent night's sales as with the other 30 items came up to $800.  Mind you I have quite a bit invested in this stuff so the profit margin is much smaller.  

Anyways there is a request this morning to cancel the transaction with no explanation.  

I of course question the buyer as to why.  They said they bid $108. So how did you win it for 342.00. much less pay for it as well?   

This follows up the previous night's sale where one of the dealer books from 1959 I sold for $160.  I asked the buyer before shipping it if he noticed that the cover was broken and fixed on it?  It was clearly shown in the photos,  though not specifically highlighted in them as there were 100 pages in the book loaded with photos for the 59 cars and Corvettes so I had to choose what to use those 12 photos for.  It was however noted in both the short condition description at the top,  in Big bold letters at the very beginning of the description and again in the description further along.  He said no he didn't and wouldn't want it because of that.  (Insert icon here for man pulling out his hair) 

This is how things like the stuff popping up continuously on ebay happen.  To put it short,  many bidders / Buyers are idiots.   I have never actually put a number in higher than Intended to bid and had to retract it ever in thousands of bids a year over the last 10 years.  There is a separate page that asks are you sure this is your bid that you have to agree to.  Are these buyer's completely blind?  I have a feeling most problems are related to bidder's remorse. 

How sellers really wish we had that nuclear negative feedback button back.  I wouldn't care if it garnered me negatives or not (hell they can nail you with a negative for no reason whatsoever anyways) 

 

[Matt Harwood]

9 minutes ago, auburnseeker said:

Here is a classic example from last night.  My top sale.  Someone won a Dealer album for 342.00.  A very good bid.  They then paid for it.  Great finally a decent night's sales as with the other 30 items came up to $800.  Mind you I have quite a bit invested in this stuff so the profit margin is much smaller.  

Anyways there is a request this morning to cancel the transaction with no explanation.  

I of course question the buyer as to why.  They said they bid $108. So how did you win it for 342.00. much less pay for it as well?   

This follows up the previous night's sale where one of the dealer books from 1959 I sold for $160.  I asked the buyer before shipping it if he noticed that the cover was broken and fixed on it?  It was clearly shown in the photos,  though not specifically highlighted in them as there were 100 pages in the book loaded with photos for the 59 cars and Corvettes so I had to choose what to use those 12 photos for.  It was however noted in both the short condition description at the top,  in Big bold letters at the very beginning of the description and again in the description further along.  He said no he didn't and wouldn't want it because of that.  (Insert icon here for man pulling out his hair) 

This is how things like the stuff popping up continuously on ebay happen.  To put it short,  many bidders / Buyers are idiots.   I have never actually put a number in higher than Intended to bid and had to retract it ever in thousands of bids a year over the last 10 years.  There is a separate page that asks are you sure this is your bid that you have to agree to.  Are these buyer's completely blind?  I have a feeling most problems are related to bidder's remorse. 

How sellers really wish we had that nuclear negative feedback button back.  I wouldn't care if it garnered me negatives or not (hell they can nail you with a negative for no reason whatsoever anyways) 

 

 

If I had to rely on eBay to make a living like you do, Randy, I think there would be murders.

 

It's a consequence-free environment. I have people bid to buy my cars and/or hit Buy It Now with no intention of buying, they just want to hit the pause button while they figure it out. Costs them nothing, right? Who cares? You're not a person or a business trying to make a living, you're just a button on their computer designed to give them a brief endorphin rush and when it wears off, they might decide the highwasn't worth it. It sucks and I couldn't imagine dealing with dozens on a daily basis. Kudos to you, you're a better man than I.

[auburnseeker]

There are some days of smooth sailing but the margins seem to get slimmer.  That's why I list 30 to 40 items a night.  When I started I wasn't doing bad with 5 to 10.  Bumped it to 20 then up to 30,  now 30 to 40 but that's the max pother than an odd day when I have stuff really ready top go and items are very similar.  

Worst thing is the no pay bidders.  I have piles of sold inventory that didn't sell for much.  9 pages worth infact totaling $3000.  One customer has over 100 items and owes me $1,000. he used to pay but hasn't and has more excuses.  I won't tell you how messed up ebay's invoicing system is if buyer's don't stay on top of their purchases.  

I know mine is piddly compared to the numbers $$ wise Matt deals with, but as my only outlet for sales it does get a bit unnerving.  

[Kevin M]

I’m suprised that Craigslist didn’t just start running ads. I’m sure Coca-Cola or McDonalds should have been happy to pay Craigslist for another space to advertise their product. I’ve noticed that Craigslist has seemed to be not as great the last few weeks since they did this. Facebook Marketplace works ok for things other than cars. Cars are weird on there. I didn’t it hard to look for exactly what you want. Especially since they seem to only have pre selected makes and models 

[39BuickEight]

If you know the story of Craigslist, you will know that the company was never started as a money maker at all.  This $5 fee is not to make money, it is to help clean up the fraudulent sales.  It has already made a big difference in the listings.

 

Every single private individual could stop using craigslist and it would not affect their income at all.  It's all from companies listing jobs and ticket/auto brokers.  They are the ones who pay, and have done so for 20 years.

[auburnseeker]

Less sellers means less lookers.  It's a downward spiral.   Today I noticed 4 new cars in the search that used to fill 3 pages.  Yes some were the junk but 75 percent weren't.   I hear the one time $5 listing and you're buried isn't helping things.  I might try it once when I sell the 40 Ford, but  that will probably be it.  Only so many dollars to spend advertising,  I want to put it in front of eyes that will see it and hopefully be able to bring it back to attention without it getting buried as I'm sure it won't sell the first day it's listed.  Alot of competition in the 40 Ford market. 

[Harold]

UPDATE:  I bit the bullet and listed my Stratus on Facebook Marketplace last Monday.  Got about 30 replies, they were all pretty much talk.  One guy couldn't get here before last night and bought the car immediately.  He registered the car this morning and drove away happy.

 

Would I do it again?  Probably, but I'd still be happier without my real name splashed on the ad.