A change to Craigslist Car and Trucks by Dealer

So Craigslist, is going to start charging dealers for posting on the site.  There are many ways to look at this and over all with the way Craigslist was going in the dealer section something was going to have to change.  So starting 12/3 (So Craigslist says) they will start to charge dealers $5 per post.  A good chunk of dealers are all upset about this, and I get why they would be.  With how Craigslist is right now a post at $5 for a car listing is way to much.  What most are over looking is that Craigslist a few years ago, was way fewer post and a few days a day went a really long way.  Then every one started posting more and more ads so every one else had to start posting more and more on top of them to try and get the most leads.

Now, with all the changes Craigslist has put in place before this change tho, I am not sure on the value of each lead now.  They have taking putting images in the ad using the <IMG> tag out, they then took out the <table>, <font>, <div>, and <span> tags as well.  The one they took out that they do not list any where, is they also took out links as well.  So the <a> tag is gone as well.  So the leaves you with uploading images to Craigslist (Mind you they give you up to 12 images now), using their e-mail system, putting in your own email address in the ad, and putting in a phone number.  Mind you putting in a phone number is what most of them do at this point any ways so no big change there, but taking the links out makes it where they user has to contact the dealer rather then letting them do more information digging on their own before reaching out to the dealer about the vehicle.

Also the fact that Craigslist in their own Q&A page about this, talks about dealer who want to put up more then 500 ads per month, we can guess they are wanting the traffic to stay about the same, not many dealers have 500 cars on the lot they would want to put on Craigslist in the first place, and if they want the dealers to stick with the TOS of the site and not post the same thing every day ( like they are all doing right now ) then this seems like a odd thing to be in the Q&A.

December 3rd will be a day, to watch and see what happens on the cars and trucks by dealer section on Craigslist that is for sure.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/ctd