Recently, I was browsing some webmaster forums, where I had discovered that a lot of people were asking how to start a website like Craigslist?
And as usual, people generally come up with suggestions like “you should learn web design,” “learn HTML or PHP,” and the best of all “you’ll need thousands of dollars to make a website like Craigslist, go live!
Let me tell you one thing, this is 2015 and you don’t need to learn code (of course, it’s always good to learn how to code, you can do it side by side) and wait for the next 3-6 months to create your own version of Craigslist. Instead, with robust CMS like WordPress, you can create just any kind of content websites.
There are already a lot of pre-ready solutions available on the web to create a turn-key business, with sites like Craigslist.
Being a die-hard WordPress user for years, I was aware are already plenty of such classified application themes, which are built with ready to scale code and comes with all sorts features to run a site like Craigslist.
Therefore, I thought to write this detailed guide for beginners to create your own Craigslist like website with WordPress.
Personally, I am a big fan of these Craigslist like classified sites, such as OLX, Quikr, Kijiji and Locanto to name a few. These Classified sites are greatly popular to promote local business in a particular region, city or even across the entire country. Theses websites aren’t just limited to selling old stuff and buying the new items, in fact people often sell their local services to their local audience, using these platforms.
The leading Classified sites on the web
Craigslist is the oldest and the biggest classified service on the web, it serves a whooping 20 billion page views each month, making it as the 37th most popular website Worldwide. The site receives over 80 million classified advertisements, along with 2 million new job listings every month, forming it as one of the most popular job board on the web.
OLX is an another, one of the most popular classified site network, it is so large that it has the presence in over 106 countries on the web. With such a vast presence, it’s no surprise that the platform manages to hit the traffic of over 11 billion monthly visitors and did I mention? it serves around 360 million page views every single day.
Besides of these two top-notch online classified players, there are many other such popular regional classified services on the web like Kijiji in Canada, Quikr and Locanto in India, Gumtree in UK, Australia and more.
P.S. This is a very detailed post, don’t forget to grab a cup of hot coffee or tea, whatever you prefer. :)
The Craigslist or Classified Concept
The idea behind running a classified site
Before we start learning how to create a website like Craigslist using WordPress, I want to give you a brief idea about this business.
As according to Fabrince Grinda Co CEO OLX inc, Classifieds are a form of (usually text-based) advertising that allows individuals and companies to solicit sales for products and services. They appear online and offline and can be free or paid for.
Classified ads are nothing new, traditionally they have been appearing in the print media such as newspapers etc, but now a days, internet has taken huge share of classifieds with the presence of highly dedicated platforms such as Craigslist, OLX, Kijiji etc.
Typically, a classified sites charges a fee to post an ad or in most cases the site charges nothing for posting an ad, instead it offers paid/premium or featured listing, that allows a user to make his ad appear on the homepage for a much wider visibility, and this paid feature helps him selling his product and service even faster.
Primarily, these Craigslist like sites makes money using display advertising services such as Google Adsense.
Alright, I believe that was enough for your to know before you get you started with creating your own Craigslist like site.
Now let’s start this detailed tutorial, but before we start I also want to introduce you about the Classified WordPress theme.
ClassiPress WordPress Theme
First thing first, you must need a classified WordPress theme as the base of your classified site.
Well! I guess you know nothing about classified theme for WordPress, so in simple terms these classified themes aren’t just regular WordPress themes to run your WordPress based sites instead, they are designed and created by professional developers to serve as a dedicated Classified site in mind.
A typical classified WordPress themes offers functionality such as
- User registration
- Member dashboard
- A large search box
- Ability to post an ad
- A WYSIWYG editor – to create a highly informative ad description without knowing html
- Featured listing
- Contact form for each ad
- Location geo-tagging
- Ad view counts
- Email alert system
- Social share integration
- Payment gateway integration
- Mobile ready design
- Automatic ad pruning, once they expire
- And much more
The requirements to create a website like Craigslist
1. A good domain name – You know on the web, everything starts with a good domain name, if you want to make your Craigslist like site stand out from the crowd, I suggest you to better try to register a brand able domain name instead of using terms related to the word “Classified,” itself.
Pro tip – If you’re buying any hosting plan, then skip this step as most of the WordPress hosting provider offers a free domain name along with the hosting plan you purchase with them.
2. Web hosting – Instead of a regular shared hosting plan, It’s far better to choose WordPress Optimized hosting plans, with built-in caching solutions, staging platforms to test your site before it goes live, they also offers automatic WordPress updates and a lot more in comparable to the traditional web hosting.
If you don’t want to spent high, I would suggest go for Siteground’s WordPress hosting plans, starting at $3.95 to $14.95 /month or alternatively if you want to go big from the start, then you can opt for MediaTemple’s Premium WordPress hosting plan with advanced features, which is capable enough to easily handle over 400,000 of page views per month, you can get it starting for$20/month.
Learn more about hosting in my everyone’s guide to managed WordPress hosting
3. A Classified WordPress theme – A standard lifetime license of any WordPress Classified theme such as ClassiPress, it costs just $99, which you can use on an unlimited number of sites, along with regular theme updates and support for a year.
However, if you’re a developer, and you also want those PSD files of the theme designs, then you can purchase the developer package, which will cost you $159. You can get the ClassiPress theme, by clicking upon the button below.
Overall, the entire cost for creating a Craigslist like website, you’ve to spend some $300 for a year.
Let’s get started
I assume now you’ve a domain name, a hosting account for your WordPress site, and a licensed version of ClassiPress theme.
Configuring your domain name and setting up a WordPress site
- If you’re already aware of how to set up and configure, your new domain name with your hosting account then its fine, else follow this detailed knowledge base at Godaddy.
- Now you’ve configured the domain name with your hosting provider, check that your domain is propagated well.
- Once, you’re done with the domain propagation, it’s time to install WordPress, still want a helping hand? check out this step by step installation guide at WordPress.
- Finally, you’re ready with your fresh WordPress site, now the next step is to install the ClassiPress theme using FTP.
Installing ClassiPress Classified WordPress theme
We now have a WordPress site ready to install the ClassiPress theme, you can easily do that using your WordPress dashboard, following the steps below.
- To install the theme, just navigate to the Dashboard>Appearance>Themes>Install themes and select upload.
- Now use the following uploader box to upload the theme .zip file.
- Once, you’ve uploaded the theme file, click on the activate button, that’s it.
- Congratulations, the ClassiPress theme is now installed on your WordPress site.
Configuring ClassiPress theme settings
As soon as, you activate the theme, you’ll notice a new menu will appear inside your WordPress dashboard, “ClassiPress,” this section allows you to configure each and every settings of your classified site.
The ClassiPress dashboard area displays a quick info on the various aspects of your classified site including the total no of ads running on your site, the no of pending ads to be approved, total users, revenue for the last 7 days, total revenue, and the new registration on the site.
Alongside, it also shows a graphical stats of your site, from the last 30 days, such as new ad listings, and the total no of sales.
Settings
Site Configuration
Under the site configuration area, you can select the directory style layout, a more traditional classified layout or the simple blog style layout, I would suggest you to choose the directory style for a professional touch. The theme comes with numerous color schemes to customize the appearance, you can choose Red, Blue, Green, Teal, Aqua etc.
In the header image settings, you can upload the header image or logo of your site, and you can also control the text which will appear below your logo. If you want the user to set the password while registration, check this option or else un-check it, they’ll receive the password via email. Want to add a favicon for your website, upload it here.
Next, if you want to use the Feedburner, configure it here, and the option will automatically redirect the default RSS feed of your site to the feedburner.
Further, you can also add the Twitter username and Facebook page id of your site.
It’s a good practice to use a powerful website analytics system such as Google Analytics, sign up for a Google Analytics account, and paste the tracking snippet. here
Next comes the Google Maps settings, the theme integrates Google Maps on each ad page of your site, make sure to get the two letter ISO 3166-1 region code from here and a two letter language code from here. Rest, choose the distance unit accordingly.
Under the search settings, it’s better to exclude the pages and the blog posts from the search results. The refine price slider adds a fancy price slider in the”Refine search results” widget. Leave the search drop down settings to default, they are optimal.
It’s better to hide empty categories from the search drop down options.
Category Menu Option
Under this section, I found most of the default settings are good, you shouldn’t need to modify any settings, unless you really know what you’re doing.
The last section under the general settings is Classified Ads messages, here you can enter the messages for the home page (sidebar,) new ad message which will appear at the top of the classified listings page, a message for the membership purchase page, and lastly the terms of usage policy for your classified website.
Listing Settings
This tab under listings allows you to configure the classified ad settings for your site, first up is the allow ad editing, which allows the users to edit the ads, and republishing of their existing ads from their respective accounts.
You can allow your users to relist and pay for their expired ads, you can also limit the visitors to login before they fill out the ad inquiry form on your site, however I would suggest to turn this feature off, as it will discourage the users to ask questions without the need of creating an account.
You should not allow HTML inside the ads description, since it may result into spamming, turn on the Ad views counter, as it gives the ad poster a quick stats of the total no of views his ads had received. Gravatars are good, but enabling them may slow down the load time of your site.
It’s up to you, whether you want to moderate ads or let them list automatically as soon as they are submitted, both of the options have their own benefits, manual option will help you maintain the ad quality of your site, while the automatic option, saves your time, choose wisely.
Again, it’s up to you whether you want to moderate the edited ads, or let them publish without any approval.
Prune ads, is a smart feature, it automatically removes all ad listings from your site as they expire and changes the post status to draft. If you disable this option then the ad will remain live on your site, but it’ll be marked as expired. Set the cron job schedule to twice daily, or else if you’re having a performance issue, set it to daily.
Last is the ad listing period for each ad on your site, it’s completely your choice, the default value is 365 days, but you can edit it accordingly.
The last settings under ad configuration is ad image options, I suggest leave the default settings, and make sure to check the “require ad images” option, as the studies suggest that an ad with images gives more information to the visitors about the ad, instead of simple text.
Security Settings
Switching to the security tab reveals, a bunch of options, set back office access option to “admins only,” it’ll restrict all other registered users to access the back-end or wp-admin of your site. Enable the reCaptcha option, it’ll help you protecting your site with spam registrations.
Advertising Settings
The theme comes with integrated advertising system to monetize your site with display ads, such as Google Adsense etc. There are two different units, a header ad unit for the header area and the box ad unit, which will appear in the single ad pages, search and category pages on your site.
Alternatively, you can also display your own or banners provided by advertiser on both of the advertising spaces.
Advanced Settings
The advanced settings panel, integrates a wide array of options, most of the options are self-explanatory, you can prune the expired ads once, want to reset all the stats of your site? you can do it from here, since these are advanced settings, I would suggest you to do not modify them, unless you really know what you’re doing.
It’s better to disable the WordPress login page, since the themes comes with ClassiPress branded login pages.
Also, disable the WordPress toolbar.
In case if you don’t like the base URL for the “ads” custom post type or the custom taxonomies base URL, you can do it here. But, remember to re-save the permalinks settings of your site, or else you’ve to deal with the page not found errors.
Cufon is basically a web fonts library that easily replaces text with images, however I would like to stick with the regular fonts.
ClassiPress Report Settings
The ClassiPress report settings is one of the most crucial feature for a classified site, what it does is that it allows visitors to report any ad from the front-end of your site, it can even generate and send an email, every time when a visitor report a problem on any ad of your site. You can edit or define your own report post options.
Emails
The theme comes integrated with a full-fledged email notification system, you can define your admin email address in the WordPress general settings. It’s a powerful system, that generates and sends you an email every time, a new ad is submitted, whenever ads are pruned, an ad is approved, an ad is expired, a new user is registered, member is activated, and also sends emails prior to a customers membership pack subscription end date.
The second tab allows you to configure the custom email, which will be sent to the newly registered user of your site. You can change almost anything under this mail, the name, the from email, the email subject, and it even allows you to add HTML in the email body. Use the provided email variables in your mail body, wherever required.
Pricing Settings for listing Classifieds
Under the pricing settings you can control the pricing you’ll charge for listings ads, or configure the pricing for featured ad price and even choose the pricing model of your site whether you want to charge per category basis, a share of the sellers ad price, or just charge for featured ads on your site.
Membership packs is a good feature that you can enable for the bulk sellers, it allows them to post unlimited ads for a set period of time or until the membership becomes inactive.
The third tab, allows you to manually configure price for each single categories, available in your site.
At the end, I would suggest, it’s better to let the user to submit/list ads for free, and charge users only for premium or feature ads.
Form Layouts
Another advanced feature of this theme is “custom form layouts” for ad submission forms, you can create separate form layouts for multiple categories. You can edit the bundled form layouts or create your own using custom fields.
Custom Fields
Similarly, you can create an endless number of custom fields, to customize the custom forms and allows you to collect more data from the forms. Any custom field, can be used multiple times in any number of forms, but make sure that you don’t delete any custom fields once it has been used in a form, or else it’ll break the forms, and will create issues for the users.
System Info
The system info section, gives you a quick info about your theme, WordPress installation, your server information etc. The next tab is cron job section, which shows the total no of cron jobs are assigned, and their frequency.
Sometimes, when you make some changes in your theme, and those changes don’t reflect on your site, it’s better to flush the theme cache from the “advanced tab,” also if you want to uninstall the theme or delete the entire config, you can do it from this section.
The fourth tab search index, lets you flush the entire search index, use it only if you had made some major changes to your site.
CSV Importer
If you ever wanted to import content from other site, use this tool, it let’s you upload the CSV files, which can be easily edited with programs such as MS-Excel.
Payments
Payments are the custom post type added automatically once you, activate the ClassiPress theme. The first tab lists all of the orders on your site, be it pending, failed or activated. If you want to look any details about an order, such as author name, IP address, item quantity, price date and payment then you can quickly find it here.
AD packs
These ad packs allows you to create bundled listing options for your customers to choose from
For instance, instead of just offering a set price for a period of fixed days (30 days for $5,) you can also offer discounts for the seller who wants to list for even (60 days for $7).
Let me remind you, these ad packs will only work if you’re selling ads and using the “fixed price per ad” pricing model for your site.
Membership Packs
Membership packs enables subscription based pricing packages, these allows your site users to post unlimited number of ads within a set period of time or until the membership expires.
Payment settings
The payment settings lets you configure the default currency for your site and manage the payment gateways, such as PayPal and Bank Transfer.
From the second tab, you can provide the bank transfer details for your site, while from the third tab “PayPal,” you can set-up your site to accept payments using PayPal service.
Ads Post Type
This is the second post type, which comes along with the ClassiPress theme, here you can create, edit and publish the ad listing from the back-end from your site. There are two custom taxonomies, AD categories and Ad tags, to organize the ad content on your site.
Here is a large full-page screenshot of a single ad posting area, it contains each and every option to list a classified on your site. However, this is the back-end way, and only admins can see such post edit area, while the users on your site are going to post the ads from the front-end area of the site.
Reports
Reports are a great way to deal with content spam, illegal content, etc to be listed on your site. You should keep an eye on this section, all the reports submitted by the visitors on your site, will appear here.
Alright, that was a complete in-depth overview of the ClassiPress theme from the back-end, now it’s time move on to the front-end and wrap up this post.
Front-End
The above screenshot is from the front-end, it shows a single ad page and it’s about selling a brand new iPad 64GB variant listed for sale from Dallas, Texas, United Stats, at a suggested price tag for $399. The ad page contains a good amount of description for the interested buyer, and he can see the location of the item in the map, displayed in the right sidebar.
If he has got more questions, then he can switch to the “contact tab,” to reach out a seller, with his questions, using a quick ajax contact form. Further, he can also look out for more items available with the same seller, by clicking on the third tab, “poster.”
User Dashboard
Here is a screenshot of a demo user account, it shows a branded front-end based user dashboard, it contains all the ads submitted by the user, he can modify them, keep an eye on the total no of visits, each of his ads had received. A registered user, can also buy the member packs right from his dashboard.
Submit a listing from the front-end
When a user click on the universally available, “post an ad” button on his site, he will be presented with this three-step form to submit his ad.
That’s it, you’re done with creating your own Craigslist like site.
FAQs related to creating a website like Craigslist
Why should I create a yet another Craigslist like site when there are already so many?
Look there’s always scope for something different even in the toughest market. You’ve to find out that something different and mix it with your Classified site.
Here is a great example
Fabrice Grinda – Founder of OLX, was looking for business ideas, he noticed Craigslist, and its pretense in the US market, offering access to Classifieds to everyone for free. He got the idea, to bring Classifieds to the rest of the World, a localized website for each country, and it was the born of, OLX.com
His actual words, taken from an online interview
“I notice the tremendous value that Craigslist was bringing to consumers in the US market. It was bringing classifieds to the masses by allowing everyone to find roommates, baby sitters, couches, etc. for free. I also noticed that outside of the US the classifieds markets were still dominated by the newspapers who charged an arm and a leg to post.
It struck me that there was a tremendous opportunity to bring free classifieds to the rest of the world and thus provide a great public service to local communities. We took the basic concept from Craigslist – simple, local, free – and improved upon it and localized it for each country”
Okay I’m convinced, but what’s the guarantee that my Craigslist like site will succeed?
Well to be honest, nothing in this World comes truly with a guarantee tag. However, if you’re passionate about your work, willing to offer value to your users, and most importantly remember that “Consistency” it’s the key to success. I’ve seen many people in the past who had purchased such solutions, they maintain the work flow for few months or till their website hosting expires, and they shut down their sites.
You can’t be successful with your Classified within a year, it takes a couple of years to establish your site, and turning passion in to profits.
Why ClassiPress WordPress theme?
Today, they are many classified WordPress themes available on the web, some are good with the design and appearance, while some are good with the functionality but, I had chosen ClassiPress WordPress theme by Appthemes as the base of my Classified site, since it has professional design and packed with advanced set of to run a classified site.
Besides of all those built-in features, you can expand it using various extensions, and even the entire layout using beautiful child themes, thanks to the AppThemes MarketPlace.
Can this ClassiPress theme can scale well, if my Classified site goes popular?
Indeed, ClassiPress theme, tightly integrates with WordPress, and WordPress itself is a highly scalable CMS. When tuned with a capable hosting, a Classified site based on ClassiPress theme can easily handle Millions of monthly traffic.
Are you going to get commission, if I buy hosting or themes from your link?
Yes, I do, but it won’t cost you anything extra, and it helps me to keep this site running. :)
Wrapping up
Are you planning to create your own website like Craigslist? let me know your views and questions about this guide in the comments below.
great article, i want to make a craigslist like page for selling products locally, has there been an email update like craigslist where the interested party gets the link?
Thank you for the sharing.Just wanted to ask if with any of the suggestions can be built something similar to Yelp or Websst?Thank you in advance.
Regards: Margaret J.
Hello Margaret,
Absolutely you can.
I’ll post a guide on how to create a yelp like site, super soon.
:)
When you create a website using a script or a template, including a WordPress template, you’re restricted in terms of integrations. Adding features to a WordPress template-based site is challenging, sometimes even impossible. Besides, you’ll need a specialist to do that without breaking something along the way, and if you’re hiring a specialist, why not do things properly from the start?
Thanks for dropping by Eden,
Indeed, your points are genuine to me. And yes, running a large business on this app like themes isn’t very practical in 2019.
However, there are scenarios where people want to achieve complete functionality of a specific system, be it classified, coupon site, etc at an affordable price point.
These systems are targeted towards those who are not proficient with programming etc and hiring a developer isn’t feasible to them.
For me, these app like themes are great for start, once you get to taste the waters and able to see a good transaction with your site, you can at any point of time invest in a complete overhaul of your site, by hiring any top developer.
On the other hand, if you choose to start everything from scratch, chances are high that you’ll quit sooner or later. Considering the fact that building anything from scratch demands, time plus money and no small amount of self-motivation and patience.
Hope that helps :)
Hi, First thank you so much for this amazing detailed post. I’m also hoping to start a classified webpage like Craigslist. This post helps me a lot.
Can you please answer the below issue I have.
On then top of the post you have mentioned “Mobile ready design “.
What do you mean by that. Reason is that I want to build a mobile App for my webpage with fully capability to brows and post add via the app.
Can you please guide on this topic
thanks
Hi Pranjal-
I am lost and not sure how to go about this especially with the part of setting up the files/servers and any database needed. I am not sure if I can just use a regular laptop computer and browser to do this. Need your help to get started. What I am afraid of is paying for this and not being able to setup what I need.
Howdy Payal,
Thanks for dropping by!
Well, you need not to worry about any part, the entire website can be created with the same laptop and internet connection you’re using, after all everything here is web based.
I understand your concern, no one likes to waste money, so definitely you should buy the theme and hosting only if you’re really sure about this.
It will require you to put neat amount of time and patience. Additionally, I would recommend you to create such Craigslist like site for specific niche or region based only.
Competing with already established giants in this particular domain with this modest WordPress based theme system for creating a classified site would be anything but, a pure mistake.
Do let me know your questions, directly using this page Contact me or info at blogosense.com
Hope that helps :)
Pranjal
When editing categories do I also have the option to edit the fields requested when posting an ad? In other words, can I take the “price” field out completely? Also, can I make a search field inside “categories” that asks for state and city using classiplaces?
Also, will I be able to change how the site sorts searches? For example I want every search to be listed by distance closest to farthest.
Thanks, I created my website with your guideline. it’s really easy.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks Shahed,
Glad you find it useful :)
Hi. Thanks for this. Does ClassiPress allow video content adds? So the user of imaginary craiglist can add a short one minute video of the stuff they want to sell? I guess some video compression packages should be also used. Do you think it is possible to make the coordination between ClassiPress and video compression package?
Thanks in advance :)
Waiting for the craigslist or armslist with ability for buyers to make comments on items that public can view. At least if I have to waste my time looking at a sellers overpriced worthless item that is available for less money new, please give me the ability to make a nice comment seller. Help me create this and I will gladly pay all costs just for the entertainment value alone.
Can I change the name from Classipress to my own Name correct?
Hey Charles,
Yes, you can change the name from “ClassiPress” to anything.
Thanks :)
few questions as i am new to building a website. does this theme comes with the location layout exactly like craigslist where people can check different cities or nearby cities that they’re in? is it possible to delete some categories as i just need this theme only for vehicle postings with the same interface as craigslist? & are you able to upload your own branded logo?
Hey again Charles,
Initially the theme has built-in feature to select location while, submitting any classified but, it has no feature to showcase classifieds according to the location. However, there are plugin such as, ClassiPlaces in AppThemes marketplace, which does the job.
Indeed, you can add, delete, and edit any categories.
Surely, you can fully personalize the site, including logo.
Hope that helps :)
Hello! Thanks a lot for this insightful lesson. I want to build a site like olx, but instead of buys paying to sellers before goods arrives, or sellers sending goods before he gets the money which sometimes results in one party being defrauded, is there a way to make the payment done on the website using credit card or paypal,making the money stay on the website,in such a way that the buyer has to confirm he or she has gotten the product before the money will be delivered to the seller??
Hello Tomi,
The feature is called Escrow, where the buyers deposits his money and once the good is delivered to the buyer, then only the moderator (you) will release the money into the sellers account.
The theme ClassiPress has no such feature by default, and I believe you need to hire someone to get it installed.
Here are some developer instructions on setting up Escrow with AppThemes.
https://docs.appthemes.com/developers/payments/escrow-payment-gateways/
Hope that helps :)
Within the ClassiPress theme is there a way to “approve” membership before they post? I’m trying to design a page strictly for employees of our company, and want to be able to limit who is active on the page.
Okay in all honesty. What are the odds of making it with a giant like Facebook hurting even the biggest like craigslist and OLX. I have been trying for 2 years now and slowly realising that Facebook is taking over the planet???
Facebook, Google, and Amazon are three tech giants which were busy with their own business till last few years but now they want share of all other types of business on earth. They had made their presence everywhere, you name it, artificial intelligence, web hosting, music streaming, video content, advertising, social media, mobile services, online shopping, etc. These three giants are trying with all possible efforts to increase their user base by any means, by offering any sort of service with any amount of investment.
In simple terms, you can’t beat Facebook, Google or Amazon as they’ve huge amount of workforce, billions of cash reserve to foray into any field and destroy the competition.
The key to overcome them is only by innovation, or unite several small-medium business into one (which technically is possible but in reality it mostly fails)
Overall, with this theme don’t expect you’ll become the founder of next big classified site. I believe you can be successful at regional level with your site based on ClassiPress theme.
Hope that helps :)
Pranjal. Craigslist has not been successful in all locations that their sites were created for. I know this because I asked Craig in about the year 2000 to set up a Craigslist site for the location in which I live (about 2.5 million residents) and he did. However, nearly 18 years later, that site is still virtually unused by anyone. I believe that the reason the site has been unsuccessful in my location is due to significant cultural differences between San Francisco, and the location in which I live.
So opportunities still exist to provide similar services, while addressing the relevant cultural differences. Also, the huge size of operations such as Google, Facebook and others may possibly eventually result in their demise, when fresh, new, nimble and unburdened organisations can outsmart the established operators at relatively moderate costs, because the new organisations are not burdened with the liability of huge numbers of capital investors who are demanding massive financial returns from their now decades old investments. Google, for example, has squandered billions of dollars on multiple projects that failed miserably, and organisations such as YouTube still operate with massive financial losses, with possibly little hope of ever becoming truly profitable.
Thanks David, for adding your valuable inputs.
Couldn’t agree more with your words, bigger organizations do fail at times, and several small organizations were able to survive huge competitors, using smart maneuvers, they craft their own niche and build a loyal customer base.
So, indeed opportunities are always available for everyone, one should not enter the competition with a desire to beat down the bigger players, instead focus to differentiate yourself, and commit to offer something easy and simple to use, over your competitors.
Hello! Thank you for the very informative Web page and for your comprehensive responses to people’s questions. I am definitely going to buy Classipress for my Web site. I already have the domain name, and a Web host with WordPress set up. My question… I want my site to look (visually) as much like Craigslist as possible. Very simple. No photos, or anything. Can I do that with Classipress, or should I buy a Child Theme afterwards? If so, can you please recommend a Child Theme that makes it very simple looking, like Craigslist? Thank you!
Howdy Benjamin,
Thanks, I really appreciate your kind words. Indeed, you can definitely make your site visually similar to Craigslist, with the help of a childtheme. There isn’t any child theme with similar look of Craigslist. However, there is a theme which has very simple newspaper like layout.
You might want to take a look.
https://marketplace.appthemes.com/child-themes/classipress/clasifichados/
Hope that helps :)
Pranjal this website date is a bit old. I would like to discuss a combination blog and classified theme template. Possibly more instruction. Excellent webpage by the way!
Hi J,
Unfortunately, I couldn’t assume which website you’re referring here as outdated. It’s entirely possible to create such a site with Classified theme along with a blog, in fact this theme also supports both functionality. Please use the https://blogosense.com/contact-us/ page, to reach out me with your specific queries.
Thanks for dropping by :)
I am in need of someone to help create or build a website like Craiglist, OLX, Kijiji, Quikr and others and the website will offer classifieds from all cities or states in my country. Presently, we have 36 states plus the Country capital state making 37 states. Also, the website will be across between social network like which will allow adverts to run on it.
Hello Olusola,
The instructions here are very simple, anyone can create such site including you. If you want then, I can help you with setting up the site.
Hope that helps :)
I can do that for you olusola
I’m in the process of starting a Craigslist type site but the one question I have is does this theme use a email relay system like Craigslist to hide people’s emails or is that extra? And to anyone looking for WordPress help or developer go to fiverr.com it’s a great site for WordPress developers.
Hey Shane, as far as I know, right now there’s no such feature in the current version of ClassiPress theme. However, I had approached the developer of the theme with your question, I’m waiting for his response.
Hello!
Thank you for the excellent and very thorough review. I have been using Classipress for sometime now and I still learned a few things.
Under Classipress/Emails/General two options that can be checked include: “Send an email on new ad submissions” and “Send an email once their ad has expired.” We had assumed that these emails would be sent to the User, but this has not happened with any of our tests. Do you know if there is anyway for users to receive these notifications?
So then we figured that maybe Admin is supposed to be getting these emails, but that has not been happening either. Do you have any ideas on what could be happening?
Hey,
Natalie, thanks your words :)
The options are supposed to work that way, it’s weird that you’re stuck around.
Did you tried dropping a support request with the AppThemes, regarding the same issue? I believe they are in better position to help you out.
I could also see, there are several support thread available on the AppThemes forum about the same issue. I couldn’t access them, as I’m not a ClassiPress customer, please take a look using your AppTheme account, I believe it might give you some clue.
Additionally, in case if you don’t get any help, then please provide me the support ticket Id or URL, I’ll pass it to the developer of the theme.
Hope that helps :)
I would NeVER EVER EVER buy another Appthemes theme. Their support is more than horrible. Sites crash with almost every other WordPress update and if you have it up and going, you will soon have it down. What a waste of money!
Hi Lindaloo,
I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with them. Can you please pass your support ticket ID or the URL to the same, so that I can personally pass on your details to the developers of AppThemes.
Thanks
Hi, great article..
just have a question is it possible to add to page some banner (for example of some company that will pay me to make their advert on my website etc.)
thanks for anwser.
Hey Arkadiusz,
Yes, if you are willing to implement contextual ad banners alike of Google Adsense etc, then it’s surely possible.
Go to the ClassiPress option in the WordPress admin bar, navigate to “Settings” and click on the “Advertising” tab.
Under this panel you can define the HTML code to display your advertisements.
Hope that helps :)
Very nice. If we wanted to create a site like Craiglist and to offer classifieds from various cities all around the country, we are thinking we would need to create subdomains for each city – as I believe Craigslist does. So, for example there is craigslist.org, and then for various cities, it will be newyork.craigslist.org or detroit.craigslist.org. Etc Etc.
My Question:
If we attempted something like this – – would we need a separate WordPress installation as well as separate theme installation in EACH subdomain? Or – – is there a better, simpler way?
Thank you!!
Hi there Yukon,
In such case, instead of installing multiple WordPress installation. I would recommend you to try WordPress multi-site, it’ll not only reduce the headache of installing WordPress on each subdomain, as well as, it’ll be easy to host a WordPress multi-site, over running several clones of separate WordPress installations.
Hope that helps :)
I have been wondering about this too and have done little research. Everything I have read says to use Custom Post Types instead of Multiple. I’m looking at both since I need to make this too
Hi,
Thanks for the great article!
I wanted to ask a few things regarding the dashboard:
1. Are the inquiries sent to the dashboard or are they sent directly to the publisher’s email?
2. Can I receive the inquiries before they are sent to the ad publisher?
3. Does the admin have an overview of all ads and inquiries?
Thanks again!
Hi Guy,
1. The generated inquires are directly sent to the publisher’s email.
2. As of now, with the native theme you can’t receive the inquiries before they are sent to the respected ad publisher.
3. Yes, admin has the overview of all ads but, you won’t have any overview of the inquiries since the inquiries are not stored anywhere, they use mail function instead.
Hope, that helps :)
Regards
Nice article, very concise.
Do i have to pay for hosting first before working on classipress theme?
Hey HoneyzRich,
Yes, you’ve to buy a hosting for running WordPress.
Then, you can buy the ClassiPress theme.
Hope that helps :)
Hi again! Thanks for your help. I’ve a new question – how do I get more options for customers to pay for putting in ads? lik paying trough mobilephone or at least creaditcard etc. paypal is not so big in our countries // best regards Neg.M
Great article Gupta
if i want to add a make your offer button to the classified theme would it be easy , I tried “Helios Solutions WooCommerce Hide Price and Add to Cart button” i will not work with woocommerce and classipress together.
Thanks
Hi there,
Definitely not Faouzi, the Helios Solutions plugin is built to use only with WooCommerce.
For ClassiPress, you can hire any WordPress developer to add a “Make your offer” button.
Hope that helps :)
Hi
I have some questions;
1. Can a user (without becoming a member) search for an object (sell, buy, rent) through a searchfield or pick category and then pick city?
2. I live in Sweden – does it matter or can I follow your instructions and get at good site?
3. Could I charge for every person who wants to put in an add and other things like more then one picture upload etc.
// BIG THANK YOU!
Hi Jesse,
1. Yes, absolutely any visitor on your site will be able to search the listings without the need of registering themselves. However, native ClassiPress theme has no such functionality to search listings by city, for this feature you need to buy a separate child theme from AppTheme’s martketplace. The child theme name I would recommend is Classy.
https://marketplace.appthemes.com/child-themes/classipress/classy/
Additionally, there are many Child themes for ClassiPress at the AppTheme’s Marketplace, you can freely choose any one which, has the feature to search by “Zipcode or city.”
2. My instructions are valid for all countries in the World, you can freely follow them to create your own site.
3. Naively, the theme gives you options to charge user for adding a listing (advertisement), create a feature or premium listing, adding a listing in specific category, or you can also enable site membership packages. Besides of all these if you want to charge
Hope that helps :)
I like the information on your site. I read a link about a hosting company called media Temple. This is the larger hosting site with a higher fee but they help you with your site. And you can use the word press with it. If you’re looking to build a large site that will handle lots of people. And you think you would need assistance this is a good site to use.
Hey there Louis,
Indeed MediaTemple is a great option for hosting larger WordPress sites.
If you need any help related to this article, feel free to drop your queries.
Thanks :)
Like the cost to make a site like craigslist
Such awesome article.
I thought to make such website in Afghanistan. Like olx.
Sir I have very damp question.
Is it possible, and how to buy there?
What will be the benefits for me of such website?(I am very new to this failed) Thanks
Hi there Rahimi.
Thanks for your appreciation.
Indeed, you can make such site in your country, all you need to do is buy a good domain name relevant to your language, good hosting and the theme.
Regarding buying a theme, hosting and domain, you must need to have a credit card or virtual credit card.
Rahimi, the benefits would be :
You can monetize your site by using advertisement on your site, such as Adsense.
You will provide, a platform for your people to sell old things, and buy the new ones.
Hope that helps :)
1. for a start how can I lift ads of people posted to other website to my new classified with their contact and details as it was posted. In order to increase my website content?
2. I want my classified website user to get text message alert whenever a buy click their ad, how can I integrate that?
Hi Faith,
Smart question, this way you can quickly increase the visitors on your site.
And the answer is web scrapping, it’s a method to scrap content from other websites.
If you’re curious, then you may try Import.io, it’s a new tool to scrap content from any public web page.
For integrating a text message notification, you need to by a subscription to SMS gateway.
You would need a WordPress developer to make addition of both smart features, into your Classified website.
I am sorry Faith, I’m not a developer yet, so can’t tell you the whole process on my own.
Hope that helps :)
how can i be famous but not so much
Great article! I can’t figure out how someone pays for a sponsored ad. Can you explain how one would deal with that? This template looks pretty good, otherwise.
Can you add your own categories or are you stuck with theirs?
Hey Mike,
ClassiPress comes with a custom taxonomy called “Categories,” so you can create any number of your categories inside this taxonomy.
Hope that answers your query :)
Great article!! Thank you for spending your valuable time to assist others.
I would like to set up a site that is used for individuals to find and communicate to local contractors. (Like a Home Advisor, or Thumbtack) It seems to be a cross between a social network like BuddyPress and ClasiPress. Do you have any suggestions, or think it would work with ClasiPress?
Hey BrownDog,
To be very honest I don’t have much experience with BuddyPress, I can’t say much except that indeed it seems very much possible.
Natively, there’s no support for BuddyPress with ClassiPress but, yeah you can make it work with little customization by yourself, or if you don’t how to code then better hire someone.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks a lot, for replying. I will definitely buy through WordPress.
Hello Pranjal,
Your blog has inspired me. I work for NPO, I need to create website that is similar to Craigslist, would need your guidance.
I will definitely purchase Classipress that will help me. Also I am planning to purchase domain through hostgator.com will it be an issue.
If possible please reply to my email.
Thanks,
Mayank
Hey there Mayank,
Glad you liked the post :)
No, it won’t be a problem. However, it’s usually better to buy hosting + domain from a single place, it simply ease the management.
Sure, please use the contact me page to directly reach out to me if you need any help.
Regards
Thank you so much for a fantastic tutorial of how to install Classi Press. Before I go through and purchase can I ask a couple of questions. So from what I am reading if I am installing this in one location for another location I need to have some sort of other coding. Reason being is I am setting this up for someone in another country. Now this may seem a silly question but can they moderate each new posting before it goes “live”. That is what they have asked me. Thanks in advance.
Howdy Cea,
Thanks for your kind words.
What I understand is that the client for whom you are about to create a ClassiPress based site, they want to approve every single listing/post before it gets published, so yes they can, and “Manually approve and publish each new ad”
Hope that helps, feel free to ask anything more :)
Cool thanks so much for the quick response Pranjai. Also can I use ClassiPress and set them up in another country? And yes I think they may decide at some point to just leave the ads automatic, but we do what we are asked, most times :)
Hi again Cea,
Oh for sure, you can setup the ClassiPress in any country of your choice, there are no country specific boundation, at all.
I agree with your last words :)
Ok thanks for all we have just purchased through your link. Cheers
awesome Article Sir…Sir Please Tell me one thing for Classified Site ? How much Space or Bandwith Require for this type website ? means to say Hosting Plan ? is it sholud be VPS must or Normally hosting because for time being Visitors increased day by day ?
Hey there Riaz,
Glad you liked the article,
Surely, classified site requires dedicated server or VPS for better site performance, but it applies only for the higher traffic sites.
And since you’re about to create a classified site, therefore I believe you should choose a decent shared server plan as of now, and gradually once your site start hitting a noticeable amount of traffic, then you should consider upgrading your site to a VPS.
For now I recommend Siteground WordPress hosting, starts at $6.95/ monthly.
Siteground
Hope that helps :)
i can not change my password http://www.classidubai.com/edit-profile/ how to solve this issue
Hi,
Try resetting password or forgot password option, you should get a new password.
Hi,
I am looking to create an OLX type website and will need different screens and functionality available for seller and buyer user. Their registration will also be separate. Is that possible with ClassiPress?
Hi
I have a simple and maybe stupid question.can I make a website as you described in one country for another countries market?
Hi Admin,
OLX is allowing to end user can post an AD without user registration. Is is possible with this theme like OLX ?
First thing First: many many thanks pranjal,hope you are doing well.
i have registered domain and at first due to lack of knowledge i purchased Website builder theme of Godaddy,Then i realised that it wont serve my purpose of building classified site.
so after deciding to go with managed wordpress hosting,installing classipress sound great to me.my few questions which may sound dumb are,
1) can i have a country specific classified site with classipress so that a user can select his country on entering site first ? can i use a subdomain for it like country.mysite.com
2) can i install other themes like jobroller along side classipress because i want jobs listing aswell on my site.
Hi
Great info
Can you set it up by location so when people log in they just get the site for their city ?
Hey Nikki,
Well by default the theme has no such integrated feature but yes, you can achieve such functionality by hiring any WordPress developer, and he’ll implement it for you at a nominal charge.
:)
Ok – thanks – I have ended up purchasing a different theme now, but thanks for letting me know – if I have any issues with the other theme, I’ll come back to this one as you have made this ‘how to’ look very straight forward. Thanks
Hi, I am heavily confused. I wanted to create an olx like website so I got started right away. Only to realise after I’ve baught the premium package from my host, that I need a database to run a ad website. I don’t recall you mentioning anything in this article about a database so where wwould the ads and images of the sellers be stored?
My apologies if this is a dumb question but I am fresh to the whole website thing and almost sacked my whole idea because of this database issue.
Please share some light as to how this whole process described manages to operate like olx without a database.
Thank you in advance
Hi Ruvey,
I am unsure what kind of hosting package you’ve bought from your host, but for your kind information this Classified theme requires WordPress, and I wonder whether you’ve chosen a very basic hosting plan for hosting a plain HTML site or a hosting which is suitable for installing WordPress.
If the hosting plan you’ve bought is WordPress ready, then you won’t need any external database, as WordPress itself relies on MySQL database to store all the content.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to run a WordPress site without a database.
Alternatively, if you’ve already bought the plan and if it’s not suitable for WordPress, then you should ask your host for upgrading or switching your current hosting plan to something which is ready for WordPress.
Hope that helps, feel free to ask anything related to this post.
You can also use, this page to communicate with me over mail https://blogosense.com/contact-us/
Thanks :)
The same happened with me that i bought website builder package of GoDaddy and learnt about databases later.so now i am thinking of Managed wordpress.
Hi Admin,
Thanks very much for this wonderful article.Am planing to build my own website and i really hope you can help me. The website is going to be a wedding directory where people can post their wedding & engagement pictures and also businesess like Makeup artist, event planners, MC and Dj, care hire and every other thing related to wedding can advertise their businesses.Please can you advice how to go about it.Many Thanks
Hey Babs,
Thanks for your query, I’ll shortly update you on how to achieve such site using WordPress.
Pranjal :)
For such an awesome article, first of all I am kinda surprised that it has garnered only 6 comments so far…I have not finished reading the article yet…i plan to do so in parts as I am building the site and will refer this on need basis…it’s TMI to soak up at a go. Thanks dude for this article…its simply AWESOME!!!
Hey BigB,
Glad you liked the article, feel free to ask any of your questions. :)
Regards
With ClassiPress, is there a way for users searching for products to pick their relative location similar to on craigslist?
Hey Crisitan,
I somehow missed your comment, my apologies.
Unfortunately no, as of now there’s no such way for your site users, but yes you can hire any WordPress developer to implement such feature.
Thanks :)
Does ClassiPress use a two-way email relay system, like Craigslist, which protects the email addresses for both parties? I would want to ensure that the responder’s email address isn’t visible to the original poster.
Hi Pranjal,
I’ve 2 questions. Are there any user-rating modules?
User1 sells product1, and he receives a review over that particular product and a rating.
And is there any chance to include a virtual exchange value? Such as having a number of credits, and when 2 users complete a transaction (between themselves) they will consume part of their credits. And they would have to purchase credits in order to complete a transaction. (1 USD per credit for example)
Thank you,
Horatiu
Hello Horatiu,
Well, I’m afraid there is not such extension to add the above functionalities to this theme, I suggest if you want to add such features, then you should better hire some developer.
Hope that helps :)
Hi. I’d like to build a classified site similar to craigslist but a little different. Can you please help? I’m just learning HTML, CSS (beginner), Javascript (beginner). I need someone that can help me get it off the ground.
Thanks
Hello Moreau,
Well at present, I can only related these WordPress based solutions to create a site similar to Craigslist.
Alike you, I am also learning web development, and in fact I’m a little behind you, just HTML and CSS, yet.
Therefore, right now, I can’t assist you to create such site, but if you want to create it with WordPress, then I can surely help you, as much as I can.
Hope that helps :)