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Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

carsabi.com

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Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#81

Post by scoot »

dw5ight wrote: post #58
ricksta wrote: post #14

I like it. I'm located in Canada and when I put in my canadian zip code first just to get back to the main page again. You should give a notification when someone enters in a zip code you no longer support instead of failing silently.

yeah, that's a major fail on our part. I'll add a notification that only USA is currently supported - thanks for the feedback I honestly hadn't even thought about international stuff yet :P

"I honestly hadn't even thought about international stuff yet"

You must be American.

Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#82

Post by rorrr »

ry0ohki wrote: post #74
gcb wrote: post #72

my gripe with 90% of car searches. i'm not after one specific car. i'm buying a used car. i have a fixed budget and a some cars that I would avoid. everything else is fair game. craigslist is the only one that get's it correct. 1. put your price. 2. get a bunch of crap you don't like 3. add -crap1 to the search 4. repeat 2 and 3 until you get things you like 5. select a few, call, inspect, buy. limiting by brand/mode…

I've felt this same way for a while, I've been running a used car site since 1995 ( http://www.ausedcar.com ). The sad thing is I've experimented with all sorts of other ways to search for cars over the years like what you are recommending (in the past I've let you search by fuel economy, etc...) but nothing seems to convert (ie work) as well as the same convention everyone else uses of Make and Model :\. Also Craigs…

I can't agree more on the second point. If only they added mileage, year, make, model fields, this would instantly make car search painless.

What they have now is a bunch of unstructured data that users have to sift through.

CL is great, but the lack of innovation doesn't make any sense to me.

Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#84

Post by blueski »

raccoonone wrote: post #26
blueski wrote: post #22

Love it! Searching on value feels like it'd be useful for a trader, but not necessarily an individual with a strict price limit. How about adding a value measure to the boxes? Then users could sort by price but still pick out the real bargains. Also would be nice to search for several models together and/or criteria rather than models (e.g. "manual hatchback between $7 and $10k"). Good luck!

Definitely, we'd like to add more comparison as to how good of a deal you're getting, but just haven't had time yet. The hatchback/sedan/... is on our roadmap too. It's a little tricky, because often sellers don't post it explicitly, and doing computer vision on the pictures, would be very hard.

Great. I wondered if you could take whatever you're using for the "Best Value" ordering and display that metric in the boxes (so no need for more analysis).

Maybe you could store which models are always hatchbacks and always sedans, as a starting point (relatively few models have a hatchback version in the US so I think this would get you 80% of the way there). For those where there's a sedan/hatchback version, perhaps assume it's the sedan unless sellers include hatchback keywords - and If in doubt, maybe show the result anyway with a question mark icon?

Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#86

Post by gabaix »

rorrr wrote: post #82
ry0ohki wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've felt this same way for a while, I've been running a used car site since 1995 ( http://www.ausedcar.com ). The sad thing is I've experimented with all sorts of other ways to search for cars over the years like what you are recommending (in the past I've let you search by fuel economy, etc...) but nothing seems to convert (ie work) as well as the same convention everyone else uses of Make and Model :\. Also Craigs…

I can't agree more on the second point. If only they added mileage, year, make, model fields, this would instantly make car search painless. What they have now is a bunch of unstructured data that users have to sift through. CL is great, but the lack of innovation doesn't make any sense to me.

The unstructured data makes Craigslist a much easier place to post listings. I don't have to click or press TAB and ask myself "what is this field now?" You could arguably find the make / model through natural language processing, which with CL philosophy and resources might be a stretch.

Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#89

Post by gcb »

gabaix wrote: post #86
rorrr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree more on the second point. If only they added mileage, year, make, model fields, this would instantly make car search painless. What they have now is a bunch of unstructured data that users have to sift through. CL is great, but the lack of innovation doesn't make any sense to me.

The unstructured data makes Craigslist a much easier place to post listings. I don't have to click or press TAB and ask myself "what is this field now?" You could arguably find the make / model through natural language processing, which with CL philosophy and resources might be a stretch.

that's a trade off. a bad one.

in CL you don't think about posting, but your ad will be removed by other sellers with higher price (happened to my nexus one when i tried to sell) and buried in a couple hours. and expire in a couple days. And then, the READER has to put in all the time the writers didn't put.

on other sites, you waste some time to write, but you can be sure you will not be removed without reason, the ad last longer, and the buyer can get there quickly.

Re: Show HN: Craigslist Car Search

#90

Post by gcb »

vaksel wrote: post #30

pretty good, although for craigslist, there is really no sense in letting someone search within 14 days. anything that's a good deal is gone almost right away I lost out on like a dozen cars before I bought my last one. And that was only because I saw the ad get listed in the previous 5 minutes, and went right away to test drive it. As far as feedback, 1 bug - when you scroll through the makes, it keeps hiding. Espec…

no idea what kind of car you were looking, but my last experience I took 1.5 mo to find a decent one. and then negotiation took another couple weeks.

in all that time i was still "searching" craigslist, and I could see the same cars over and over. A few were fast, of course.

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