Car for Sale

1988 Mustang. Less than 80K miles. Good condition. $1000 OBO. It's the typical classified ad from some guy trying to sell his Mustang. Those few words say a lot, but they also leave prospective buyers with a whole lot of questions. What color is the car? What does good condition mean? If it is in such good condition, why only $1000?

1988 Mustang. Less than 80K miles. Good condition. $1000 OBO.

It's the typical classified ad from some guy trying to sell his Mustang. Those few words say a lot, but they also leave prospective buyers with a whole lot of questions. What color is the car? What does good condition mean? If it is in such good condition, why only $1000?

How many times have you read a classified ad and wondered what the item looked like? And there you have it-an excellent business idea: a classified ads website that features copy and photos of the items for sale. Sellers can include the link to your website in their classified ad, and voila! Prospective buyers can log on to your site, check out the photo, or photos, listed and decide whether, or not, to contact the seller.

It saves everyone time: the buyer from driving to the seller's home to check out a car they might not really be interested in (after seeing the photo), and it gives the seller a great way to advertise his car and reach more prospective buyers at the same time.

You can use this for all types of merchandise, but it might be particularly popular with used cars. The first thing you need is a website. Let's say you live in North Carolina. You can purchase the domain name www.charlottenccars.com. People selling cars in North Carolina will contact you and pay a fee to have their ad and photo listed for a week, two weeks, a month, or however long they want. (You can charge according to how many days or weeks it will be listed.) When the client pays the fee, you will assign him an ad number, for example, 17.

Here's how his ad would now look in the classified section of his local paper:

1988 Mustang. Less than 80K miles. Good condition. $1000 OBO. Photo and more info at www.charlottenccars.com/ad17.

On the client's webpage, you can place a photograph or several photos-either full size or as thumbnails. You might also allow them to include their ad copy or write new copy for the website. Make sure the buyer's contact information-whether it's email or phone number or both-is also included.

Creating a website is simple, and you have plenty of options for inexpensive web hosting. Check out: GoDaddy, iPowerWeb, PowWeb, Globat and StartLogic.

Once you have the website domain secured and some content written, you are ready to start finding clients. Place classified ads in your local newspapers and local Pennysaver. Include your website URL, so people can check out what you are all about. To get started, you might want to contact a few people with car listings in the paper, and offer them the chance to advertise free.

You don't have to limit yourself to cars, however. As discussed earlier, you can also start a website for all other merchandise listed in the classifieds section. You might purchase a domain name such as www.charlottencclassifieds.com

So, what are you waiting for? All you need to get started is a domain and inexpensive web hosting, and you are ready to start. Best of all, you have minimal startup costs.

Resources:

http://www.startlogic.com/startlogic/index.bml

http://www.globat.com/readmore_features.htm

http://www.powweb.com/powweb/index.bml

http://www.ipowerweb.com/

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp