Is Craigslist hurting the economy?

[LeeH]

10 years ago if you had an old bicycle you might sell it to a friend or donate it to Goodwill. It would cost $20 or more to buy an ad in the local paper so selling it to the general public didn't make sense.

Fast forward to today. If you want to sell your old bike you put up an ad on Craigslist with a couple of pics and before long someone shows up with cash.

The key detail is that 10 years ago the person who needed to BUY a bike had limited choices. Most likely they went to their local bike shop or retail store to buy a new bike as there wasn't a ready market of used goods.

This same theory applies to electronics, appliances, sporting goods, etc. Previously it wasn't cost effective to advertise small items for sale and, therefor, consumers were faced with buying new. How much is this increased turnover in used goods hurting the economy?

[Wickd89]

Use to advertise in The Recycler or in local penny savers. Not much difference just a larger faster market. If you are selling something substantial you still have the paid ad option.
Small evolution of the internet...

[turbo6bar]

Originally Posted by LeeH

How much is this increased turnover in used goods hurting the economy?

I'd argue the increased turnover may be helping the economy. Instead of buying new goods at the store and incurring new debt, Americans can maximize their available cash.

Craigslist helps:
reduce debt
reduce trade deficit
reduces American throw-away mentality

Can you tell I'm a fan of Craigslist?

[Oh Haha]

It's just rummaging via your computer.

We don't use CL but have found some great deals on EBAY for stuff we needed.

Tonight my wife scored a dual screen DVD player to use in the car for $40.00. This version retails for close to $100.

That being said, I do think that both of these sites have hurt business. Folks buying used items don't feed the need to build new. It trickles down from there.

I won't be buyinga new vehicle unlessI win the lottery. Why take the hit in depreciation when you can get one a few years older for wayyyyyy less?


Yes, I have become cheap since I was laid off.

[Rick V]

Yeah and all those yard sales have made the nation debt what it is.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by turbo6bar

I'd argue the increased turnover may be helping the economy. Instead of buying new goods at the store and incurring new debt, Americans can maximize their available cash.

Craigslist helps:
reduce debt
reduce trade deficit
reduces American throw-away mentality

Can you tell I'm a fan of Craigslist?

I agree wholeheartedly.

[varmint]

it's a whole underground economy out of the government's ability to regulate and tax. at least so far.

hope it stays that way.

[herr_oberst]

I like CL. Never have quite been able to understand the business model - are they just fattening us up for a great big payday?

(But ask newspaper owners across the country how it's affecting the economy!)

[island911]

This reminds me of a story:

A yank goes to China to visit a highly successful socialist jobs program - the digging of a huge canal.

Once at the sight he looks and asks: "I see lots of shovelers, but where is the heavy machinery?

The Socialist responded: "this is mostly a jobs program."

Yank: Shouldn't you then take their shovels, and give them spoons?"



Applying the same 'logic' to consumerism we would have to have some sort of govt program that bought massive amounts of... say cars, only to crush them. --oh wait.

[Schumi]

Originally Posted by turbo6bar

I'd argue the increased turnover may be helping the economy. Instead of buying new goods at the store and incurring new debt, Americans can maximize their available cash.

Craigslist helps:
reduce debt
reduce trade deficit
reduces American throw-away mentality

Can you tell I'm a fan of Craigslist?

Here here.

I'm a huge proponent of Craigslist. It's fascinating to me. My main use of it is for stereo equipment and appliances. I actually think it's kinda cool, calling up total strangers, showing up and their house, and taking old stuff off their hands. For instance, a guy was selling an old stereo which twigged my stereo senses, I call him up, tell him I'd stop by that night. I shop up and the guy is moving out of his (nice assed) apartment, the stereo was too big and he didn't want to find a place for it where he was going, so he said if I took it that night he'd let me have it for $50 (which was 1/3rd of what he said he had wanted for it). I gave him the cash and he helped me carry it down a flight of stairs (took 4 trips, big rack system) and load it in my car.

Never had a deal go bad on Craig's. Always met with nice people, and it seemed they were just as happy as I was to be selling their stuff as I was buying it used instead of forking over the dough for new.

[varmint]

it's cut the number of streetwalkers in my neighborhood by 2/3rds.

and allowed a lot of the girls to cut pimps out of the equation.

[on2wheels52]

If you don't have any trouble selling used stuff, hats off to ya. It's been a necessary evil of my profession (pawnbroker) for the last 25 years. I hate the 'art' of selling. How do you know what game the buyer is playing? Set your price a bit high, expecting to come down, they can walk off without an offer and tell their friends "you can't buy anything there, he wants too much for his stuff". Start out at what the thing is worth, they'll lowball you. Then you become someone who won't 'deal'.
I guess that's why there's no price tags on the stuff I have for sale.
Jim

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by turbo6bar

I'd argue the increased turnover may be helping the economy. Instead of buying new goods at the store and incurring new debt, Americans can maximize their available cash.

Craigslist helps:
reduce debt
reduce trade deficit
reduces American throw-away mentality

Can you tell I'm a fan of Craigslist?

Competition is good, it helps keeps prices down. Let's face it, it also screws the govt out of some tax revenue so maybe Uncle Sam (or Sambo) if you prefer is the one takin the pipe.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Adapt or die. There are lots of business models that are outdated and have outlived their usefulness in the context of a new, highly-competitive, Internet-based marketplace. If the old fashioned places can't hack it, too bad for them.

I recently had to order a couple of cords of firewood. I shopped around and called a few places - a local guy had the best price but insisted on cash only. I basically told him to forget it and went to the second lowest priced guy who happened to take debit cards (he actually took paypal too, although I just used my debit card over the phone). Two hours later his guy showed up with the wood in a dump truck. Easy peasy for me. He got my business because he understood my needs as the customer (I want convenience). I wasn't about to go out in the frikkin' cold driving around to find an ATM just to withdraw 400 bucks in cash to give this guy because he's too old fashioned to get with the times. Yes, the guy I went with cost a little more but I didn't care.

Also, FWIW I think Craigslist is only marginally useful anymore. There's so much spam, clutter, junk and distracting nonsense on there to sift through it takes the joy out of it. Some days are better than others and YMMV.

[onewhippedpuppy]

CL is a garage sale without the annoying driving. No different than the way people have been exchanging used stuff for decades, it's just more convenient. I love it, and buy/sell most of my vehicles on there.

[aigel]

It hurts the economy more because now people surf for stuff at work, instead of driving from garage sale to garage sale on the weekend.

I also am frustrated with the amount of spam. Try to find a car that's not sold by a dealer, for example. They pose as private sellers on there all the time - just annoying.

That said, my family loves CL. We deal in furniture, kids items, cars, car parts, you name it. It is good to deal in CL in L.A., where you can take stuff off people's hands that are more spendy than you (new furniture every 3 years) and sell your old stuff to people that are even more frugal than you (buying 15 year old furniture).

George

[LeeH]

One of my favorite CL features is the free section. Our grill was showing its age and we picked up a new one. The old one really wasn't worth selling, but too good to throw away. I put it on the free section of CL and it was gone in 30 minutes to someone who truly appreciated it. I even had someone happily pick up a toilet we pulled when we upgraded a bathroom.

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by aigel

I also am frustrated with the amount of spam. Try to find a car that's not sold by a dealer, for example. They pose as private sellers on there all the time - just annoying.

I'm a frequent user of Craigs - nothing but positive experience in buying/selling stuff from cars to vhs tapes. I really dislike the ads that have tons of tag words in them. I searched for Ducati on the Motorcycles for sale page and just about every motorcycle ad passed the search filter

[john70t]

Ebay is suing Craigslist right now.
Apparently Ebay got onto the Board, used gained insider info to set up competing site Kijiji, and is now getting kicked off the Board.
Story here:eBay’s Craigslist Suit About Classified Ads

Good point that it hurts newspaper ad revenue.
Not sure exactly how CL sustains their business model, but it's a free-market.
Their free ads keeps a lot of crap from going into the garbage, saves time shopping yard sales, and leaves consumers with discretionary capital to pay off the mortgage or purchase something else new(another payment plan).

[MysticLlama]

They pay for the site with the revenue from job postings mostly. There may be a couple other categories as well.

The site is fairly low maintenance, lowish bandwidth, and job postings are something like $25 or so, and there are a ton of them.