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The Pros and Cons of Craigslist
Craigslist can be a positive way to advertise a product of yours to a number of prospective customers at no cost to you. However like every option there are both cons and pros to using this site, and lets look deeper at both sides of this argument.
The advantages of Craigslist
One of the best parts of Craigslist is that there is no cost to make a posting, and it is easy to do for anyone who has an email address. Joining is a simple task and posting advertisements and uploading pictures is a breeze. Craigslist differs from the other online auction sites as well as newspaper advertising that makes you pay for your advertisements – this is completely free and it doesn’t get better than free!
Another advantage to this site is that there is such a wide variety of products and services that are being offered, so you have a broad prospect to sell anything from job opportunities to houses and cars. As long as what you are selling is legal, it can be sold through Craigslist.
It takes a minimal amount of effort to make money on Craigslist and it is possible to start or grow a small business through the site. There are many people who are selling homemade objects or even renovating products for others and selling them – whatever it is that you can do or you can make, it can probably be sold on craigslist.
One more good advantage is that by utilizing craigslist, you can run an internet based business. Customers use your email address to contact you and you have the option to remain anonymous, meaning your email address will not be shown, instead emails are forwarded to you and your privacy is safe. You are able to gain an income from home, which is also a great advantage.
The Disadvantages
While the site is used by billions of people, your advertisement is really only going to be able to reach a very small percentage of that total. This is because of how the site is structured, and broken up into smaller sections based on geographical locations. Currently they use about 450 different geographical locations to separate posts. So one of the main disadvantages of the site is that you are not able to reach as large of an audience as you may want to. Your advertisement will be limited to the local area in which you are posting and you are not supposed to put it on in multiple areas at the same time. For those wanting to sell their products in large numbers this can be a large hindrance. However a solution would be to rotate the geographic areas where you are posting your ads.
In addition there is not any protection provided to the seller as is available on sites such as ebay which protects the buyers and the sellers that use their site. When using craigslist you need to rely on trust with sales and purchases. While the majority of transactions go smoothly, there will always be people looking to take advantage and you are open to scams without any protection. The fact is that people can write bad checks, or cancel payments and the chances of recovering any of the money is slim, especially when compared to the other sites that protect these issues. This disadvantage is balanced by the fact that the advertising is free of charge, but it is important to be knowledgeable about these possibilities.
Craigslist is well known for people reporting advertisers for breaking the regulations and rules of Craigslist. It is easy to be marked as spam by the site for violating the slightest rule. It can also be difficult for businesses that are new to have the ads posted.
But now that you are aware of the pros and the cons of doing business on Craigslist you will be able to decide if your product will work with this method, and whether you should give it a shot. It is free advertising, so why not give it a try…
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