Competition Amongst eBay Alternatives, Hoobly Beats Craiglist By Taking Things Local And Global

Author xlxmarketing 25.2.2009. | 18:05

Hoobly, not just for the birds, a free classified site that has a lot of traction within the ecommerce community.

When it comes to eBay alternatives there’s not only a battle between online auction sites… online listing sites are looking to differentiate as well.

When it comes to a mix of local and global online listing site Hoobly might just have the edge of ecommerce giant and part eBay owned Craigslist.

The internet is becoming increasingly localised, which has been one of the reasons sites like Craigslist have been so successful. Unfortunately Craigslist has a couple of difficulties dealing with state lines.

The ecommerce listing and eBay alternative Hoobly has no such difficulty and allows sellers and buyers to operate on a global and local level.

Set up in 2003, Hoobly is a free classified site which, according to the hype: “integrates the best of both local classifieds and a national marketplace with its “Ad Filter” technology, which starts out general and allows for more specific browsing.”

While many might be frightened away the number of pets on the front page they don’t to be overly worried. According to reviewer Vangie Beal (ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3727826) animal lovers discovered the site first which resulted in a lot of organic Google love for pet-friendly keywords.

There is a tonne of other items on sale too.

Multiple pictures, email addresses, websites and other details can be listed on the site making it a fantastic place to list for people looking to market their online store.

The only downsides to listing on this site are the lack of an on-site spell check function and the inability to put up descriptions in anything other than plain text.

As the site is supported by ad sense listings are free and will stay on the site forever (or until you take them down)

Either Phillipe is well-known for his iPod dock mods or someone should have done a spell check before listing their item online

Hoobly has also made provisions for premium listings as well which receive favorable positioning and different colored backgrounds.

Hoobly has taken a leaf out of Google’s book in how people get these premium listings. You bid on how much you would like to pay from each clickthrough generated by the premium ad, with your position being dependant on what other people are paying.

Registering for an account isn’t as arduous and nerve-wracking as signing up to an online marketplace with auction-like formats.

Hoobly just asks you to give them a valid e-mail address and your location to get started. They will ask you to reply to a verification email to make sure your email address is valid.

Then you can start working on your ‘My Hoobly’ page. Here you can create, edit or delete your own ads plus access your account details.

After registering you should also verify your account through PayPal as this changes your status to verified, giving you more credibility with buyers and letting you track inventory through PayPal.

After that, it is important to set a “Home Area” by providing a zip or postal code that lets you drill down to find local classifieds and take advantage of Hoobly’s “Radius Search.”

The radius search is the heart of the local advantage of Hoobly as your ads will show up in a higher position in searches done by members living near to your place of business, even if that might happen to be across state lines.

This is something that similar listing sites like Craigslist and Kijiji fall down on.

When writing Hoobly ads you are more likely to get more out of friendlier, more folksy ads than hard sell numbers that you’re used to using for sites like eBay.

And while the owner of the site, Peter Grigor, has said in the help page (hoobly.com/help?topic_id=AD) on placing listings that service ads should be left in the service section there are various examples around the site where people have got around this like the one above.

Spreading your listings in sites with a global and local reach is a necessary step in this day and age and hoobly is an excellent choice for people operating in the US and Canada particularly… especially with the lack of fees and listing which lasts in perpetuity.

Check out Hoobly now on Chinavasion’s eBay alternatives page and start increasing sales while waving goodbye to eBay.

Author xlxmarketing 25.2.2009. | 18:05
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