Thinking about starting a Classifieds website

No traffic means no money. Make sure you have traffic. Focus on building traffic.

It is EXTREMELY difficult to build a good quality site like that. You need to spend money and invest a lot of time and effort. I know because a friend and I tried it a while ago and it was so difficult that we gave up.

What are you going to do differently than the hundreds of other classified ad websites?

Sounds like a good idea, but, like others said, will take a ton of work. Do you have any passion or enthusiasm for your niche?

Anything is possible, you gotta market this site as hard as you can. There are so many sites like this AKA: craigslist and others. Just don't give up!

I like this idea, i think the key is to target a specific niche. you aren't going to beat craigslist but what if you are just a classified site for buying and selling World War II artifacts, Yellow Beanie Babies, etc.

a classified business really good, if you are really serious about classified business.
start like a pro , not from free classified script.
customize layout,features listing, alert.

good luck!

You have to differentiate your self from the competition. What makes your site different that will attract people?

It's most likely a waste of time unless you have an existing traffic source that you can plug it into.

Ouh.. such a tough business to get into.. Classifieds.

If this is really something you want to pursue, focus SMALL - TINY TINY TINY. There's no way you can compete with the big ones as a small startup using a free script found online :-)

Find yourself a niche you already have a network within and start there.

Creating a successful classified site will be extremely difficult since craigslist gets most the traffic. Sorry for being a Debbie Downer but it's the truth ...best of luck

The better option for you will be to target a specific area. For example if you are living in Texas, build a classified site only based on Texas. It will ease your pressure and less you competition. The more you will advertise your site, you will get better result.

The best thing is to think of a unique feature that may be interesting and the other site dont have. This could help you attract traffic.

If you really into it, then go for it. be ready for whatever happened. Starting a business is like a gamble, sometime you win, sometime you lose. Good luck!

It was 2 years ago when I built a general classifieds website. I didn't know anything about html and css at that time. I used a premium wordpress classifieds theme. I got a lot of listing and my site was on page 1 of google for several keywords. My problem was the theme that I used was not great to collect listing upgrade payment. I tried to look for other software that will do the job. I used the software to build a general classifieds and auction in one. I thought it was a unique idea and it could make me more money.. lol..

Here's my advice to you.

First, find a classifieds software that has a great feature to collect payments such as featured listing on homepage, category, and sitewide. Look also for other listing add ons like highlighted ads, attention getters, storefront, etc. You need a robust software if you're not a developer or if you don't have enough budget for custom classifieds software. Even developers prefer this to save time and money.

Second, target a profitable niche or its sub niche in a specific country or city . Forget about general classifieds. It is extremely difficult to compete with the top classifieds if you don't have enough resources. However, you can use a popular classified in your country or area to do a market research. Find a category that has a lot of paid listing/featured listing. That's a good sign of a profitable niche.

Third, take action and deliver results.

As of now, I study paid traffic and practice my design skills to fully customize the frontend of my classifieds in the future. I failed twice but that was not the reason to quit. My failure taught me everything that I need to do on my next website. I hope this helps.

Hello friends,
Any one want classified site domain name I have a great domain name "myadsfree.com" for sell. If you want plz PM me...

Go for it!

Ebay started somewhere right?, well you might have missed the boat on that one, but what you want to do is very do-able with right attitude and hard work

Hey guys,
i'm looking forward to star my website based business which I need to know the regulation and best practice business Registration, i know the type of registration for a business: Corporate, General partnership and sole proprietorship. What happen is: Is not an eCommerce "Web store" but I'm planning to integrate it in the future but for now will be a Classified website similar to Kijiji and craigslist.org to post job advertise, services, restaurant and more by the user who visit my website, register and so on. I want to star Small easy to go back in case things doesn't go well do i have any options for that particular kid of business or it have to be Incorporating it? My question is for those kind of website, to start up which registration is more suitable? With a General business license for a sole proprietorship will be possible to lunch it and start up or need to be other license type, I don't want for now to go corporate because i'm starting it only by myself so I like to know an advice about how and easier way to register my website business name as a classifieds website. I was reading that after i register could be any type i still have to go province by province and register in order to operate and get customers and visitors from other Canadian province other that Ontario? Do I have to register for HST tax and the other tax as starting my business or I have choice to do it after things are looking good with my website? I'm not that clear but i think tax will be pay after annual profit reach 30,000. Thanks any opinion, resources or reference will be really appreciated and helpful.

Yeah traffic is king! Ive just started an affiliate site and my main priority is generating traffic...Daily I'm social bookmarking, blog commenting (Not spamming) social media, Fiverr gigs, youtube Using google alerts and then paid traffic whilst working on SEO and drilling down my niche and keywords so people will actually find my sites

Don't waste your time on it. You'll make more money on Fiverr if you want to *work* for a living.

It doesn't seem worth the time and effort to me, unless you create something really unique. If you aren't able to fill a need for a group of people actively looking for a way to fill this need, then you're just going to end up being another blip on the internet.

Nobody needs another generic classified site. There are countless already in existence. Some good. Some not so good.

If you've got a starved niche, then perhaps this could be a worthwhile endeavor. I just don't see it paying off in any manner if you go the general classifies route.

considering that eBay is charging close to 20% total commissions and fees,

and fiver is charging over 50.00 % in total commissions and fees

so a classifieds website that has decent fees is highly needed

I agree with many others that your classified site has to offer something unique, something different, something better than all the competition out there. Otherwise, you could have a great site and it'll get little or no traffic. In fact, getting traffic to a classified site is a two-fold challenge, 1) getting advertisers, and 2) getting buyers. Without buyers, advertisers won't come and stay. Without advertisers, there's no reason for buyers to come.

Having the script is a good thing but not necessarily enough for a successful business. Something like classified which are not doing really good right now is very very difficult to market and go big. I for one am not a big fan and do not support such business unless you have the market for it. good luck