Somewhat Off Topic, Online Classifieds

[Joe Sporleder]

Our primary product is a shopping guide. Since our entire publication is advertising, we have noticed a significant decrease in word/line classifieds, and small classified box ads. Our display ads are still doing great, as our retailers and other businesses still use us for traditional print advertising (in fact, traditional retail display advertising has grown, despite the economy). What has been eating into our traditional small classifieds and word ads is the free online classifieds from the Craigs Lists of the world (including similar regional competition that offers free online classifieds).

Does anyone out there have a kick butt online classified system for their shopper and/or newspaper that you really like? We are wanting to provide a really great online classified experience for our readers, both from a reading point of view, and for anyone wishing to place an ad. We would want to give away free online classified ads, but offer an up sell option where the advertiser can buy the ad in print too. We use Creator for our entire pagination process, so any that want a paid print ad we'd want to easily be able to get that information into Creator.

Joe