An Experiment: Publishing Items to Craigslist
As anyone who follows Bonanzle's tweets knows, after finally getting our items online at TheFind.com last week, I became inspired to look into what other sources we might be able to leverage to get our sellers better item exposure. The first (and easiest) answer was Twitter itself, thus the addition of "Tweet it" a couple days ago. But now we're taking on a much more complex (and potentially rewarding) endeavor: publishing items to Craigslist. First of all, a brief bit of history is in order about the evolution of the web and the fate of past sites that have tried to work with Craigslist. Past sites that have tried to make it easier to post to Craigslist or search Craigslist results have been shut down by Craigslist, usually within days. I know Craigslist has a small staff, but I'm convinced that they have at least a few staff whose sole purpose it is to sniff out sites that are automating aspects of Craigslist that are difficult, and banning the IP addresses for those sites so they can not operate any more. Despite their unwillingness to open their platform to any other sites, I am still a big proponent of what Craigslist is doing and how they're doing it. So I put my mind to creating a process that would make it easier to post Bonanzle items to Craigslist, but hopefully not so easy that we'll draw their ire and be shut down. Thus, the birth of the Craigslist Exporter. The bad news about the exporter is that this isn't a "one click and your item is on Craigslist"-sort of prospect. Though technically that would be possible (anything is technically possible at Bonanzle, right?), Craigslist would be sure to put the kibosh on something like that immediately. The good news is that, with a little practice, you can save yourself a tremendous amount of time getting select Bonanzle listings on Craigslist. I posted my laptop to Craigslist in about 30 seconds during my test run (and I've already gotten my first scammer replies to it! ). For items where you want to get them an extra boost of traffic to get them sold quickly, there is a tremendous amount of potential in posting to Craigslist, and I expect that if Craigslist finds this exporter acceptable, it may become a very popular tool in the future. Though it's admittedly kind of rough around the edges right now. Give it a shot if you like -- it lives under My Bonanzle -> My Booth -> Publicize my items -> Publish Items to Craigslist. You'll probably need to read the brief overview of how the exporter works. I've included a link at the top of this blog, there's also a link to it on the main page where you do the exporting.
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36 responses to An Experiment: Publishing Items to Craigslist
Sounds like posting in reverse – which is a great idea!
Do you ever sleep?
Yep, got a great night’s rest last November. Thanks for asking.
Genius I tell you genius! I have been doing little ads to promote my stuff as well as Bonanzle so this will just make it much easier! Thanks!
P.S the next one should be Kijiji (owned by you know who)LOL
ohh….that will make it soooo much easier to post there. Good thinking !
Ps: Just did….wow…how cool is that. Hope they won’t see the little thing about “see more in my bonanzle store” But hey, there are some cities that do not have the nazi police out as much as some areas. I posted some stuff before in a couple areas and poof….was gone..in others it stayed. Live and learn where you can post
Hi, looks great but you forgot Canada!!!! Please
Thanks Bill! I too have posted many items on Craigslist…BUT I have yet to have one pulled (knock on wood)
I contribute this to the fact I list mine in cities within reasonable distance from me.
Everyone may want to keep within their area and see how that works
With this new tool, more people will be finding Bonanzle and that will be a big benefit to all here!
Thanks again Bill….now PLEASE get some rest! This site will never be the same if you don’t take care of yourself!
Thanks for this new enhancement!
Way Cool!
I tried it & it was like mega easy!
Hope they don’t pull them as I just copied direct from my ads here.
GREAT NEW ADDITION!
Great! Very easy to do. My hubby had just asked me to put a few things on Craigslist, and with this neat little feature I accomplished 2 listings in about 2 minutes! whoo hoo!
Just listed on Craigslist, wow, couldn’t have been easier! Wonderful idea! Thanks!
Hmmm, swimming in dangerous waters. There are a lot of scammers on Craigslist, especially in my area. Concept is great! But I, myself, might have to think twice about listing.
Thanks, I’ll give this a try. I’ve posted pretty regularly on there at times, but have never managed to make it easy! thanks Bill…you know, your brain has enough energy to light the entire continent!
I am unable to get it to work…my browser maybe??? it will not paste at all…Oh well something in beta is almost likely to have some bugs in it. I am sure it will be great when everyone can use it!!! Thanks Bill
Sunflower: I tested it in both Firefox and IE 7 and it worked in both of those, although in IE 7 I had to click title, then description before it started to “take.” 90% of the time if IE7 works than IE6 does as well, so if you’re using any of those browsers, I’d imagine you’d be fine. Drop another comment if you ‘re using one of those and you’ve tried clicking a couple times and it continues not to work.
I can not get this to work,everything is there,but when I click on title,description or price it will not copy and paste info in. Tried all ways, control-V,copy paste. If I do it myself it will put the wrong info in. EXP, for price,it puts in the word vintage.????
I used tried both Firefox and IE.
I think all of your ideas are great Bill, but I have never ever even been to Craig’s List… so my question is: If we export to Craig’s List do we have to have an account there? i.e. check out our items over there? Or is it more of a re-routing to Bonanzle thing where I can just stay here? Thanks in advance for your response!
This was soooo easy, once I figured out not to go to Publicize YOUR items, but to use the link on the left side of the page that says Publicize MY items.
I just had one of my listings pulled on CL. It’s for the ammonite I have in my booth here (I’m a little afraid to ship it)I copied the listing and it got pulled. My photos, my fossil, I didn’t mention any other site, can’t for the life of me figure out why someone would report that. Kinda over craigslist.
Ebay owns part of Craigslist. I’m not sure I’m digging that. Not to mention when I list something there it never shows up. Maybe we should rule them out.
Well it is clear to me I understand how to do this. But still I can not get it to paste in the info.
What it will put in is anything that I have copied and pasted before.
So if I was doing some copy /paste to a letter or something before, then go to do this that is the info that will be put in the Title, Price and so on. I get the links/icon turning yellow too.
I just had one of my 3 items pulled also. And I stayed “close to home”. Well, maybe the others stick and some ppl will find us.
Bill I am using firefox, I am going to go try ie and see if that works, I will let you know…Thanks
Thanks for setting this up! I have a verified account on craigslist and found it very easy to use the tool. I really appreciate that it dumps the photos in automatically, instead of me having to load them individually.
I did make one change to the format, since technically craigslist does not allow direct links to commercial websites – asked people to email me for a link to my Bonanzle store instead. Examples of a couple I posted:
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/bks/1040486909.html
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/bks/1040495438.html
Excellent idea, as long as we stay on Craigslist’s good side! If you apply to be in the small biz section, they will verify you with an automated phone call, which might make commercial style listings more palatable to them (maybe). Rebekah
I’m using IE. Cleared history/cache/restart and still can’t get the paste to work. I click the little icon next to title and it turns yellow but the paste doesn’t work.
WELL LOOKS GOOD
LET’S TRIED
mARY
Tried again today,cleared and cleaned out my comp.
Still will not copy/paste right,I get what ever I copied last. Maybe it’s a Vista problem.
Mary-Noel
Pasty problems for me too, using FF3 on XP
Whatever is in the ‘yellow icon’ does not transfer to my clipboard.
Just wanted to report a Bonanzle Success Story… (had to give the latest toy a spin yesterday) So when I finally had a couple of minutes without interruption; I posted my “Save the Ta Tas” Bumper stickers to CL at about 9p by 1a I had sold not 1 but 3 of them to a buyer who signed up just to buy them from my ad posted on CL. WooT HooT! And all the other ads I put up are still active. I am thrilled. The exporter made things ever so much easier to post to CL – I did have trouble as well with the pastie thingy too but having the window right here with my ads on the right of the window just one single click brought it up in another window and I was able to copy and paste manually into each field.
No doubt you’ll get the gremlins and ghosties to move on and it’ll work the way you want it to. I also use Firefox version 3.0.6 with XP Professional.
Thanks Bill you’re a genius!
I also have a success story – not long after I posted the two listings above – two sets of books – someone contacted me, asked for a link to my Bonanzle store, and expressed an interest in all six books listed! Thanks!
Slick tool, but I cannot get the paste function to work. The text highlights (orange), but when I Ctrl+V or Paste, it pastes whatever was previously on the clipboard. Using FF and Vista.
I’m having the same issue as disneyana. I have tried in in Mac OS X Safari, and Mac OS X Firefox. Also, IE7 for PC.
The IE7 has been tested both in Vista and XP. Same issue all around.
I have tried this as well, and it does not paste in either Vista (IE8, Firefox), or Linux (Firefox).
I too tried this the other night using Firefox and it wouldn’t paste or put the picture links in?
This may be old new here but there was an article on Auctionbytes about AOL classified starting up again?
Hi everyone: I found Craigslistster a great place to advertise—-links to your website without fees—fast and the ads stay for 1000 days—-US, Canada, Wales, England—-lots of diff places to post. Craiglist shut me down over a month ago with no explanation, and after two e-mails to them I gave up!!! Good luck with this—-Kathy for kirkscubagear.com
I tried this last week and it is super easy to use. No sales as a result. Yet.
I am a craigslist junkie
Don’t post more than a couple a day or you will end up getting your listings all flagged and removed. They track by IP. I actually have a program that I create 3 new emails everyday from yahoo and google. It also creates a craigslist account for each one and you can list in any state. I load each one up and post a few listings a day on each one. You can also use ipconfig and renew your Ip address every once and a while and keep listing too,that helps. WOW, I really sound like craigslist junkie
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