Why Classified Listings Get Extended

In my previous post, I mentioned how and why CoolTea created a backend process to decline inappropriate Classified Listings. Well, we also had the reverse issue and needed to develop an admin system to extend and renew various classified listings - anywhere from an added 30 days to an additional 6 months.

Here’s why - when we came out of the gate with our new classified application, we were uncertain as to the volume of listings that might ensue. Part of good web design is planning for scaleability - thus too much success can bring down a site just as easily as failures in bad code, bad design, wrong business models, etc. Thus part of good web architecture is planning for accordion growth - e.g., how do you scale up with demand, and/or, how do you scale down to keep the burn rate (money) manageable, thus in this case we thought a 30 day cap on listings would be a good balance.

But then something interesting occurred and that was the bulk of the listings posted were for time-insensitive services - meaning photographers and writers and personal trainers, their listings were not date sensitive like a “job wanted” listing which expires as soon as the company hires a suitable candidate.

Thus the question became, how could CoolTea be of better value to our customers creating service listings? After all, it seemed silly to ask people to come back every month and recreate or renew their own listing just because we put a 30-day time stamp on it to protect ourselves from floods of posts.

Voila - the answer was akin to declines - create code that shows listings that are about to expire and allows are admins to determine if the listings are appropriate for renewal, and if so, determine how many months or days would be appropriate extension to add to the listings, then automatically extend those listings.

So even though we still say, “listings are valid for 30-days” - don’t be surprised to find that if you create a good listing that is not time-sensitive, that as a professional courtesy our admins will extend it for you so you continue to experience additional exposure.