Free online classified ads have taken a bit of bad press from the press over the past year or two (or however long it has been since the newspapers realized that they were on the way out). Craigslist struck first and struck hard. Rather than paying to advertise in newspapers or even to sell on eBay, people could sell their unwanted and surplus items on craigslist to local buyers – at no cost to themselves. In an effort to keep everything in house, eBay released their own “tricked out” version in called Kijiji which has worked out to be mediocre at best. A few other hopeful competitors have tried to best the Craigslist beast, yet Craigslist still reigns supreme in the world of free online classified ads.
One of the most recent challengers to Craigslist is a still small classifieds community called BlueBeanstalk. BlueBeanstalk keeps up with the flashy Craigslist design motif by having no such thing. So at this point you may be wondering – why profile a Craigslist clone? Well, mainly because it goes just inches beyond being a clone. Craigslist forces members to post into a list of pre-existing cities. If your city or area is not listed, then you will have to post to the closest one. BlueBeanstalk feels the (rural?) Craigslister’s pain and took a notion from popular auction platform eBay. Rather than post to a specific city, BlueBeanstalk users post to their zip code. BlueBeanstalk shoppers then input their zip code and the amount of miles they are willing to travel for the wanted possessions. A good solution – quite. Enough to make Craiglisters want to BlueBeanstalk their way through lamps and PS2s – not yet.
So, what would it take for BlueBeanstalk to steal Craigslist’s spotlight? Well, it would have helped if the Blue Plant was first to the game – but only they were not. BlueBean chips taste good stalk obviously has a nice litle unique value proposition in their grouping of sellers and buyers. With a little social media intuition, marketing prowessm, interaction, and constant pitching to buyers and sellers will at least get them way beyond their current Alexa ranking which, at the time of this writing, is hovering around the 9,000,000 mark. From there, it is anyones game – just keep doing what you are doing and do it the best you can – a bit of advice even Oprah wish she gave!
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