8 April 2008 1150 views 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

I rely pretty heavily on Craigslist. I go looking for small gigs that can supplement my income, I learn about upcoming events and I find furniture to replace things that fall apart. (Best Craigslist find ever: 2 lateral filing cabinets, normally $400, for $20 each.

But I’ve found that Craigslist is getting harder to find the best deal or job on, simply because there are so many people spending so much time on it. I like the idea of Craigslist still — easy ways to find second-hand goods make my wallet happy and a little extra work makes my budget comfortable. It’s just become a matter of finding classified sites that have as many good deals, but with fewer people competing for them

I’ve got a list here of the other classified sites I’ve begun to keep a close eye on:

Kijiji — Kijiji is a relatively new player on the US market, although it’s been around for about three years in various European and Asian markets. So far, my experiences with Kijiji have been a bit hit or miss — their category structure isn’t as in-depth as Craigslist, but it’s starting to have a decently sized US user base and I expect that the the variety of ads will expand.

Live Deal — Live Deal is essentially the classified arm of the Yellow Pages and it operates more like a directory than a classified ad site. If you’re looking for any sort of work, Live Deal is bound to disappoint. However, it has impressive services listings, and if you’re just wanting to find a person or company to provide you with a service, Live Deal is a good bet.

Oodle — Oodle is rapidly becoming my go-to site. Oodle gathers up classified listings from a whole slew of classified sites (including the Washington Post, job sites and lots of others), as well as accepting classifieds on their own. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve found ‘oodles’ of stuff here.

AdPost — AdPost offers a set of listings I haven’t seen outside of the print classifieds before: business opportunities. I haven’t found an opportunity that strikes my fancy yet, but I know that a lot of people have been able to profit from them, so I keep AdPost in my list.

Backpage — For the number of Backpage listings I’ve responded to, I’ve had an excellent ROI. I’ve found a number of opportunities, work-wise, through Backpage. If job or gig-hunting is your main use for classified sites, I heartily recommend Backpage.

Freecycle — I’ve practically stopped using Craigslist to find stuff in favor of using Freecycle. For one thing, stuff I find on Freecycle is always free. For another, it’s guaranteed to be pretty close to home so I can pick it up fairly easily.