Online marketplace is playing a important role in days to days life. Buying and selling is made simple with classified mobile app, if you want to sell a second hand products there are lot of classified mobile app like letgo, carousell, craigslist, wallapop are the most usable app that makes money.

In this post, Future Work Technologies gives you a perfect idea about how these classified apps like Craigslist developed & what is the cost it actually takes to make an app like craigslist & earn money into it. This is an advertisement classified portals providing local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events.

Craigslist has maintained its minimal, text-based, non-pretty web presence that makes it extremely easy to find exactly the item you want by searching through distinctly carved-out categories and geographical regions.

There are few barriers to entry and no fees at all for buying and selling. Just enter your information in the web form, upload photos of your item, and your item is in front of Craigslist’s legions of eyeballs. You must actively manage your Craigslist post, because it expires automatically after seven days. At that time, if your item has not yet sold, you must edit the posting for it to run another seven days.

How does Craigslist Work?

Craigslist, just like other classifieds platforms, operates by listing advertisements in sections relevant to the users. Advertisements are listed based on region and category to avoid confusion and to be relevant for everyone.

In recent years, classified adverts have evolved into a whole new domain. They are no more a newspaper specific advertisements. Advertisements on craigslist have a longer life, are location specific and searchable, and can be accessed by people all over the world in just a few clicks. The best advantage of advertising on Craigslist over native newspaper classifieds is that it’s (mostly) free and can be easily targeted and modified.

This is how many startups actually begin – with MVP functionality where most of the tasks are manually performed while testing the hypothesis.

To make a site like Craigslist, you can use this list of MVP features:

User Sign Up: users should be able to register as sellers and buyers

User Profile Creation: contact and delivery information, list of listings/purchases

Listings Creation: an easy way to add listings

Search Bar: search by keyword, location, and category

Communication Channels: direct messaging between users, support chat

Payments: the ability to support transactions for sales or the option to pay for platform services.

After that, these systems can gradually be enhanced with new features and automated workflow.

The list of Advanced features may consist of:

Sellers and buyers ratings and feedbacks: this increases the trust in the platform

User verification: there are many ways to check the user personality and contribute to trust-building

Automatic geolocation identification: enhances the usability by showing the deals for users in close vicinity

ML-based product recommendation system: facilitates the search of necessary products

Auto-suggestions for listings descriptions: simplifies and speeds up the process of listing creation

Mobile app: instant notifications from sellers and the ability to create and manage listings on the go

Delivery feature: enhances the user experience by simplifying the shipping and tracking of products

At Future Work Technologies, we can help you create an MVP application or website that will be easy to scale up when your idea proves its viability and worthiness to continue investing in it.

Craigslist –

• Survived the Dot Com Bubble.
• Decimated the newspaper classified Industry
• Never changed its interface drastically
• has around 55 million monthly visitors
• has no plans to launch a mobile application and change its operating model.

How much is Craigslist Worth?

Craigslist is a private company and has never raised a penny from investors. Therefore, its value can only be assumed. However, with almost $700 million of revenue and a profit margin of 80% in the year 2016, Craigslist can be valued at around $3 Billion.

Craigslist is the most profitable classified website in the world. One of the reasons for its success is its ‘network first, profit later’ strategy. Many companies like Whatsapp, Facebook, and Quora also followed this strategy to reach the top

How to Make an App like Craigslist?

To make an app like Craigslist, first you have to understand that what is the exactly use of this application. Craigslist is a buy & sell ecommerce marketplace that enables users to purchase from, pitch to and visit with others locally. It’s necessary to understand that a commercial center is a go between, a connection among vendors and purchasers. The primary goal of a commercial center is to encourage viable and consistent collaboration among purchasers and dealers.

Eventually, the target of any marketplace is advertising. This is very evident on the grounds that so as to profit on exchanges, genuine buys are required. For this, you have to attract purchasers, who need a decent arrangement, and dealers, who wish to make a living.

You can make your own online marketplace to sell/lease anything, including old things, administrations, and rooms/property and to put online promotions.

If you planning to create your own E-commerce marketplace like Craigslist, you have to add some basic features in your application to make it successful in your users. Here I am mentioning some advance features to use in your app-

List of Features:

• Social Media Plug-in: To help your users to directly connect in the app with their social media accounts like Facebook, twitter and Gmail.
• Select Categories: This feature helps user to search the products from your favorite category.
• Write message to seller & buyer: With this feature, user and vendor can send the direct message to each other to get the inquiry about the products.
• View Vendor’s profile: User can also check the seller’s profile in the app to improve the shopping experience.
• Buy & Sell product: This feature allows seller to sell their products in the app as well buyer to buy their favorite product.
• In App payment: This feature allows users to make the payment in the application from various payment options.
• Delivery Status: With the help of this feature, user can track the status of their delivery.
• Share products on Facebook: This feature allows user to share the products on Facebook with their friends and relatives.
• Push Notification: This is basic feature which help user to get the notification about their listing.

 Craigslist Apps

There are a number of Craigslist apps available in the App Store and the Play Store for both iOS and Android platforms. Because of Google’s policy, official apps are not allowed because they also show personal ads. These third-party apps also don’t show personal ads which is why they are allowed. Most of the features are common with some difference in the UI and how they handle the presentation and layout.

You can choose any of the above reviewed Craigslist app to either create your own listing or edit them.

Cost to build an app like Craigslist:

Now come on the development part of the app. The cost to develop a marketplace application like craigslist isn’t a major deal. The total cost to make an app is depending upon the functionality of the application. Like If you want an app with some great and advance features, services you want to provide, APIs to be integrated, and many more things, it will cost you around thousands of dollars. But you can create an app with basic functionality in the cost of $3000 to $5000. You can hire a best classified web & app development company to make your app secure and user-friendly.

Why to Choose Us?

We are one of the best mobile app development company.  We offer

• Easy & Secure
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• Best Payment Feature

We have a team of skilled app developers for your needs. Hire us for your dream on-demand mobile app development now, by choosing us as your technology partner.