A leading network of online communities, a platform for featuring free online classified ads, and originating as a neat and simplistic text-based website, Craigslist is something that has driven huge curiosity about its popularity and success.
Here we break down the secrets of Craigslist’s success whose founder Craig Newmark once said, “Everything on the site is based on user feedback. Frankly, I have no vision whatsoever.”
The most prominent reason for the success of Craigslist is that it follows a local approach. Users have the option to choose the city and even the area where their listings would appear and this drives huge local traffic. On the other hand, websites like eBay would show the top sellers for any product searched but how costly and impractical becomes buying, say graphics card replacement or battery replacement, from across the continent.
Statistical Facts About Craigslist
Before further exploring the success-mantras of this immensely popular website, let’s gulp down some amazing facts about it.
- Craigslist was initiated back in 1999, and till last year it was serving 700 distinct cities in 70 countries across the world.
- Till last year, it was known to be generating revenue to the tune of $1 billion.
- Without any advertising, marketing, or promotion, it ranks in the top 20 websites in the US, surpassing the popularity of Netflix, Walmart, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or even CNN.
- By 2007, it was serving about 7 billion page-views per month coming from 200 servers.
- To top all of it, all this is achieved by only 50 employees, as of last year.
Again, how do they pull it off?
The key reason is that is neatly organized, has high functionality, and easy navigation. Essentially, it serves the requirements of its users without bombarding them with irritating ads now and then which are of no use to them.
Take your mind back to 1999 and imagine how many people would have been familiar with the Internet? People were used to seeing classified ads in print newspapers and Craigslist, with its text-based approach, provided them a convenient transition from print to the screens but with classifieds in huge volume and vast fields.
