Have you ever bought or sold anything on Craigslist? It can be a good or bad experience and most of the time people love how simple the site is. Others believe it should be updated and numerous competitors have popped with little to no success. There are a lot of people who think using the site is a poor experience. I am one who differs on that.
Craigslist History
When people are negative of Craigslist they tend to mention the sites quality, business model, safety and outdated user experience etc. I question these people who think it’s a conventional business operation for Craigslist. A lot of people think it is stuck in 1999, with its simple website and stubbornness of its founder Craig Newark to innovate and update its corporate structure. The beauty of Craigslist is that it’s managed by 30 programmers instead of a traditional business system and continues to grow without a marketing or a traditional strategic business plan.
Our View of Craigslist
I disagree with his claim that it is stuck in 1999. I believe that Craig Newark has created a solid business model that focuses on simplicity and substance rather than flash. Craig Newark has focused on anti-innovation, instead of adding new features or exotic layouts to his website; he has realized that customer’s standards for a simple online garage sale are low. By not adding new features to his website his product is not moving as fast as his customer’s capacity to understand the website. With his simple website he never segments the markets, thus having a product that is in demand by the masses.
Craigslist Management
As I hear other people’s valid points on Craigslist’s current issues, but they don’t offer any solutions to these issues, they believe that if they had a call center and a computer science department, then the issues would not exist. The main issues that concern the people are spam, customer service and safety. Safety is a big issue for Craigslist. It will most likely always be because you are ultimately meeting someone in person to sell something. If you are buying and selling something small then I suggest meeting in a public place. Otherwise, have a friend with you at home. Craigslist has been blamed for fraud because Craigslist has an unpredictable filtering system for spam. The people who use the site complain about spam, fraud, posting rules, search features, and uploading images. The customers are complaining about the simple features they depend on that don’t work as well as they would like By eliminating standard structure and having 30 programmers run the company they are separated from the users they serve.
Craigslist Improvements
I believe Craigslist can make some improvements to the site while still keeping its simplicity. Craigslist is run by programmers and they have the technical skills and abilities to update its filtering system. The programmers need to develop the filter to work against harmful algorithms. If I was Craig Newark, I would have the programmers dedicate one hour each to answer emails from customers. This will not change corporate structure and it would eliminate negative word of mouth from customers. Finally, I would move the search box from the side to the top of the page for a more user friendly site. Also, I would change the shade of the categories titles to a darker color. All of these changes would improve the site, but it doesn’t change the corporate structure of the company. I think the real tragedy of is the misconception of website standards for Craigslist. Let me know your thoughts in the comment box below.