Online Classifieds for Contractors

comments (6) October 22nd, 2009 in Blogs

Charles Bickford, senior editor

Want to get rid of surplus materials? Advertise your services? Sell that bag of hammers or an excavator? Post photos of your projects? Most folks go to the internet. Online classifieds have been taking over for the traditional print version for some time now. Craigslist has been active since 1999, and really took off on the West Coast. Back East, the growth was a little slower, but seems to be coming into its own now. It's a pretty good deal - free ads (except for certain employment or real estate ads in select cities), lots of categories, and a high level of community input that keeps the scammers and other lowlifes to a minimum.

The other day I received a press release about a new service that just launched called DiggersList that's for those of us in the building business. It's modeled on Craigslist, is free of charge (I suspect they make their money with ads), and locale-based, so you don't have to drive too far to pick up your purchase. If nothing else, it's a way for builders to have a local presence and build a sense of community. And get rid of the boxes of tile left over from that bath job two years ago.

posted in: Blogs, building materials, classifieds, online

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Comments (6)

DiggersList writes: Hi Charles, Thank you for the great review! Right after it went up, we had several requests for new cities, specifically Boston, so we just launched it! Thank you everyone else for the feedback, we are always listening.
Posted: 1:10 pm on November 6th

jimbo38 writes: Wow, I thought I was one of the few builders with a garage full of stuff leftover from building projects. Plus, I've got a bunch of stuff that I bought for two houses in progress that I had to stop work on because the owners stopped paying. I've been using Craigslist (very successfully I might add) to get rid of a lot of it, but construction materials postings get lost on Criagslist because they're not easy enough to find. I would like something like this because it is construction specific. Even if it doesn't make it, I would at least use it IN ADDITION to Craigslist - just another outlet to get my ad out there.

Thanks for the great post.
Posted: 8:15 am on October 26th

Dreamcatcher writes: This will never take off. In the several years I have been using Craigslist, I have seen many copy-cats come and go. Why? Not because Craigslist is better in context or more user friendly but simply because Craigslist is the most popular. More people use it and more stuff is listed on it.

I have also seen similar copy-cat competitors go up against big dog sites like Google, Ebay, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and Napster. The competition is just too weak and too far behind in popularity to really compete. It would take the complete collapse of the original website for those competitor sites to have a chance (think of what happened after Napster died).

Nice try Diggerslist, see ya in Florida.
Posted: 7:18 am on October 26th

JackWBuilds writes: I used craigslist to post a lot of my stuff in the past, but found that after an hour, my posting was already on the second page of listings. This Diggers List site looks great for builders who just want to clear our garages.
Posted: 5:28 pm on October 23rd

builditbig writes: All of the categories they have are specific to the building industry. As a builder, I get more than 100 category selections, vs. Craigslist, which only gives a couple.
I am hoping they expand to other cities soon, we need it here in Seattle!
Posted: 4:47 pm on October 23rd

LocalHero writes: What's the point of duplicating what Craigslist already does well?
Posted: 2:55 pm on October 23rd

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