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

[yagoparamo]

Any reports of posts being "HELD" for manual review?

I think we are on account 25+ and IF they are set up properly with CL all the way they have all worked with no issues.

We encountered a few snags where an account still required an email verification each time after the posting but we were able to get around that.

 

[WillMcG32]

So how goes the Craigslist world 5 days into the $5 program?

 

[yagoparamo]

The set up, process, and number of ads looking very positive.

Whether dealers get more or less calls, too early.

 

[Billfred]

The calls seem to be picking up last week, from the glance at the call logs.

Here's something else new for you: the ability to link to your other listings. It's off by default for whatever you have up, but this sounds promising and subtle encouragement for dealers not to hold back.

 

[yagoparamo]

I sent this today to my customers. Just a quick re-cap of what I have seen happening.
I took out what we charge and contacts so it doesn't come across as advertisement in here.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

I wanted to gather a few thoughts about the 1st week in Craig's List for the dealers.

This is a near-perfect ad:

2010 Acura MDX

1) Up to 24 photos per vehicle.

2) No HTML (so no links, color text, etc)

3) Formatted text is available (lists, bold, larger font, etc)

What would make this ad perfect (which we are working on as we speak)?:

Adding the state disclaimer (DOC fee, etc).

Adding a URL (can't hotlink, so I have doubts about the value of this)[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Inventory view:

bellingham cars & trucks - by dealer classifieds - craigslist

Notice that in the inventory view Craig's List now identifies your dealer with an unique ID, in this case 10808959

Be careful having 2 companies or even an employee postings ads if you already have the entire inventory posted. Several dealers have called stating that their ads got put on hold for having the same VIN posted several times. The accounts (you as a dealer since they have your tax ID number) will be on hold for one year (this is the time that they have always used in the past to put an account on hold).

Make sure you don't have employees posting ads in the by owner section. Craig's List could just delete those ads but they could also identify the VIN or the name of the dealership and put it on hold. So far we don't have news of this happening but the 'by owner' section has an exponential larger number of postings so I think there is a backlash coming.

Some of the people at PGI believe that based on current policies you can post a vehicle and re-post it (pay again the $5) 48 hours after the first posting. The advantage of this is that your new posting will make it to the top of the listings. First of all we don't know if this is correct, Craig's List may see your cars posted 8 times for the month and chose to delete your account. But secondly and most important the volume of postings is much less than half of what it was before deeming-in my opinion-the extra posting useless. If someone wants to push the envelope a little bit I would renew the ads on the 15th day mark.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]New features:

Craig's List just added yesterday the "see my other postings" feature (see the add above again and look at the top right corner). This feature indicates that they now feel about your cars as an "account" while before each posting was its own. This also shows the they are not done with changes and more updates to the system could be coming soon.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Steven Warren went as far as saying "Craig's List is looking more and more like Backpage and adding all its features". Only if Backpage had the same traffic Craig's List has.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]The cost of this:

$5 per ad and we charge $/month flat to take care of everything (postings, deleting ads, updating ads, etc).

If you have 100 cars remember that you need to load all of them at once making the first month a little bit more expensive. After that we just post new cars as they renew or a new units come to the system on a daily basis.

If I was the new car manager I would put a $500/month budget towards new (we don't charge more for managing that) and I will have at 100 units as a presence at all times.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Dealing with the CL account:

We can take care of the Craig's List account for you or you can open the account yourself, manage the money (pre-load the account) and we will take it from there.[/FONT]

 

[Jay Juliano]

The biggest problem with craigslist is the frontend design. It has changed very little over the last couple decades. Dealerships are using craigslist as if it's a Cars.com or AutoTrader.com. There are too many vehicles being posted for sale to stick with the classifieds layout. Craigslist needs to update the layout and break it down per Make and Model and add better search functionality. Until they do that it may not even be worth paying the $5 per vehicle for most dealers.

 

[yagoparamo]

The biggest problem with craigslist is the frontend design. It has changed very little over the last couple decades. Dealerships are using craigslist as if it's a Cars.com or AutoTrader.com. There are too many vehicles being posted for sale to stick with the classifieds layout. Craigslist needs to update the layout and break it down per Make and Model and add better search functionality. Until they do that it may not even be worth paying the $5 per vehicle for most dealers.

Uhmmm... Jay I have to disagree.

One of my stores got 32 phone calls last week end (Honda store in metro area). They are happy paying the $5!

The fact that they have 68 million users tells me the design works.

 

[Jay Juliano]

Uhmmm... Jay I have to disagree.

One of my stores got 32 phone calls last week end (Honda store in metro area). They are happy paying the $5!

The fact that they have 68 million users tells me the design works.

Sure with the right vehicle you will absolutely get a lot of interest. Those vehicles are generally inexpensive cars under $7k. I'm not a fan of posting your entire inventory on craigslist. Then again at $500/month (100 cars x $5) the exposure wouldn't hurt. I've seen a lot of dealerships do a lot less with $500.

I'm happy it's working for you!! In my market unfortunately it's not.

 

[yagoparamo]

Sure with the right vehicle you will absolutely get a lot of interest. Those vehicles are generally inexpensive cars under $7k. I'm not a fan of posting your entire inventory on craigslist. Then again at $500/month (100 cars x $5) the exposure wouldn't hurt. I've seen a lot of dealerships do a lot less with $500.

I'm happy it's working for you!! In my market unfortunately it's not.

Jay,

The right vehicle will get a lot of interest in just about any website.

There is no supportive data showing that inexpensive cars do better in CL than any other price range other than dealer's personal experience, which varies from dealer to dealer based on location, inventory, brand, CL area, etc.

 

[Billfred]

Jay,

The right vehicle will get a lot of interest in just about any website.

There is no supportive data showing that inexpensive cars do better in CL than any other price range other than dealer's personal experience, which varies from dealer to dealer based on location, inventory, brand, CL area, etc.

Agreed; some of our biggest hits on Craigslist (at least going by old VDP data) included new conversion vans and lift trucks, and nobody ever accused them of being cheap. We also had some play on run-of-the-mill new inventory; maybe not enough that I'd drop five hundred clams a month on it, but it was there.