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It just got REAL! $5 per post starting 12/3

I would bet less than 5%; look at any freemium business model for comparison. Great coverage for dealers.
I don't know where you are located but in Seattle for example there used to be 70,000 ads a day in the by dealer car section. I think only 1/8th were uniques, the rest are dups or fakes. When CL did the IP posting limitation the ads already wend down 50% nationally.
 
Yago, can you have more than 1 account with paid ads? For instance, does craigslist verify credit card information with a PVA and lock that CC into that PVA?

Hypothetically, if I had my own dealer CL account with paid ads, and wanted to pay for your dealer account as well, would CL allow the use of the same CC for two accounts?
 
Yago, can you have more than 1 account with paid ads? For instance, does craigslist verify credit card information with a PVA and lock that CC into that PVA?

Hypothetically, if I had my own dealer CL account with paid ads, and wanted to pay for your dealer account as well, would CL allow the use of the same CC for two accounts?

I don't know but that would be an easy fix: 2 CC with 2 PVA.

The easiest way to lock it down would be by VIN like Autotrader, Cars, etc do. One problem with that is that I can spend $500/month, add your (competitor) VIN's to CL system with my cars, and that way I block you from posting! Remember when Autotrader keep VINs in memory fir 30 days so if you did dealer traded a used car it wouldn't show on Autotarder's website? This is more complicated--meaning needs a lot more development--than what CL has.

I don't think they have thought all the kinks through nor I think that have much experience with our industry's quirks. As smart as they may be as database programers a fully functional inventory advertising system took a few years to perfect for Chip Perry.

Remember that the purpose of this is to crack down on spam... not. The purpose is to crack down on VOLUME which was dragging too many resources in their system, taking too much support, database clean up, etc. I think you will still be able to post in 2 areas if you live in one of those places where you have 2 major cities around you, for as long as you pay the new fee.
 
Remember that the purpose of this is to crack down on spam... not. The purpose is to crack down on VOLUME which was dragging too many resources in their system, taking too much support, database clean up, etc.

...resources they now put to use by giving us 24 photos per car. Nice to have a boost there to show off a clean car!
 
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Again, this is what I sent to my clients. It has some pricing on what we are going to charge. I think this will help a lot of people figure out what things may cost with the local tools that you use or if posting by yourself offsets the cost of the postings systems.


Are you ready?

The change is finally here, today is the first day of CraigsList charging for postings in the automotive by dealer section.

You have several choices for posting;

Post one car at a time; build the template, add the car, pay the $5. For this you don't need one of the new accounts with Craigslist, you can post with the old accounts. The only change is that at the end of the process [FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]you need to pay the $5 fee.[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]PGI Auto offers a tool that will automate the ad creation and data pushing making the manual process as easy as possible. Our tool is $200/month and you can post as many cars as you want (still have to pay CL the $5 per car).[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Your second option is [/FONT]to have a posting account with CraigsList.[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif] For this you will need to set up a credit card with them, add your tax ID number, address, etc and buy a bulk group of ads (lets say 100 ads for $500).[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]With this type of account we can semi-automate the process so for $395 PGI Auto will post your inventory and delete the vehicles as they get sold.[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Recommendations:[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]I have seen several companies claim that they can post an ad for $5 and then use that ad as a car gets sold to update the photos and content therefore having a second car advertised without paying another fee to CraigsList.[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]I don't know how much money you can save if this is possible (a couple hundred dollars) but at this point in time when CraigsList is identifying who post, how much, etc I wouldn't risk getting my dealership blocked.[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]If there is one thing I can tell you about CraigsList is that they will not care that you are blocked, as a matter of fact there will be no one to talk to about it.[/FONT]

[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]If budget allows, post your new cars too. 100 ads for $500 is cheap. We don't intend to charge more for more ads, your $395 fee covers everything (counting that CL is not IP sensitive anymore).[/FONT]