You Suck at Craigslist

Category: business

  • YSaC, Vol. 328: Not just Craigslist, Vol. 3

    We’ve had a few posts from kijiji.com in the past, and today I’d like to share a couple of posts from other online classifieds sites.

    From backpage.com comes this help wanted ad:

    … Aggravated Office Manager

    posted: May 22, 2009, 03:02 PM

    We need an office manager for local retail store. Good verbal skills are necessary, great starting wage, potential for advancement, no certification required.Great opportunity for someone who is outgoing with a pleasant personality. We will provide all required training for our staff.

    Salaries start at $750 to $1,000 per week.

    I can’t even think of what word they meant to put in the title. Motivated? Sure. Ambitious? Makes sense.  Aggravated? (But with a pleasant personality, of course.) Are they going to train me to be aggravated? Or do they expect that skill set already and will train me to be outgoing and pleasant? If it’s the latter, my mother has been trying to do that for years and it’s not gone well.

    And then, from OLX.com:

    Suddenly, shots rang out…

    in the food court of one of the area’s busiest shopping malls. It was Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of people, consisting mostly of kids and women, were chaotically scrambling for cover. When the smoke had cleared, it looked like the scene from a movie set. Lots of bloodied bodies, muffled moans of pain, and cries for help. Can you imagine yourself, or your loved ones, caught up in such a nightmare? I can’t, which is where the concept of [Crappy online mall aggregator, or COMA for short] originated. [COMA].com is a web-based mall, consisting of a virtual hodge-podge of stores, which, unlike conventional malls, specializes in wholesale items, great deals, bargains galore, discounts, low prices, and great selections. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bricks and mortar establishment with more varieties of stores ( and more are being added daily ). I put [COMA] together with the hopes of keeping my loved ones out of the malls ( and my nightmare ) as much as possible. It has been pretty effective so far. The kids have been the hardest sell, probably so because their main reason for going to the mall is to socialize. I’ve gotten rave reviews from them about the site, however, so it has been somewhat effective on them. So take a tip from the kids. Take a trip to www.[COMA].com. You’ll be glad you did. You’ll not only save money on items that you purchase, but you will save gas, because all of the stores deliver to your door. So come see why, at [COMA], our name says it all.

    Well, maybe the name I gave you says it all — your store is a crappy online mall aggregator. It’s poorly designed, and whoever is writing your copy has no idea about the proper use of apostrophes or conjunctions. (Seriously: “You’re childs toy’s”? Really? Apparently the online bookstore in this COMA doesn’t have any dictionaries or writing books.)

    Worst of all, you’re preying on people’s fears to drive business to your site. “Shop with us, and you won’t get gunned down in Abercrombie & Fitch like a commerce-driven dog!”

    Maybe not, but I also won’t get that guy standing in the food court offering me samples of bourbon chicken, now, will I? Until you figure out how to offer free samples of bourbon chicken through the internet, I’ll take my chances in the mall.*

    *Though I’m not going into Hot Topic. You can’t make me.

    [Thanks to Sarah for the “Aggravated Office Manager” listing, and thanks to the folks at OLX for calling my attention to their site by offering me money [which I didn’t take] to promote them here. (I’m too damned ethical — I also didn’t take a free piece of jewelry from some site that wanted me to link to them.)]

  • YSaC, Vol. 238: The extra w is for extra WTF …

    Amazing Web Designs – $299

    You can create your website with our Incredible Website Builder or simply have our design team do the work for you. The only website solutions company that lets you change the complete design of your site at the click of a mouse to keep your entire content intact or request our designers to do the work for you! (your site’s visitors can enjoy a fresh new look every time they visit your site!)
    Nine Great Reasons Why Your Website Should Be Designed By [Company Name].com

    1. The only website solutions company with a stunning photo album that comes with absolutely cool zoom, pan and auto sizing features!
    2. The only website builder that lets you add your own videos (promotional, informational, sales etc.) to provide instant interactivity and adds unmatched impact to your site!
    3. The only website solutions company that lets you add your favorite MP3s and lets your site visitors enjoy them with a built in trendy mp3 player!
    4. The only website solutions company that lets you add catchy greeting cards with personalized messages to create that special bond with your site visitors!
    5. The only website solutions company that lets you change the complete design of your site at the click of a mouse to keep your entire content intact or request our designers to do the work for you! (your site’s visitors can enjoy a fresh new look every time they visit your site!)
    6. The only website solutions company that lets you add a stunning online store with up to 240 products and comes fully integrated with Paypal!
    7. The only Service that lets you receive Important Contact Enquiries from your website Instantly to your Mobile anywhere in the World !
    8. The only website solutions company that lets you Record Live Video directly from your WebCam and publish it to your website Instantly.
    9. The only website solutions company that offers Integrated Search Engine Submission Service to Top Search Engines in the World like Google, AOL, MSN Live etc! (This extra service is only $89.)

    Visit our very informative website at http://wwww.[Company Name].com

    Or Call Toll-Free xxxx-xxxx-xxxx

    And, as John (the submitter) points out, the only website company who can’t spell “www”! (In addition to having four w’s in the text, the actual link directed to “wwww.[CompanyName].com” as well, meaning that you got an error message if you clicked on the link to visit their page.)

    On top of that, the rest of the things they offer are (a) things that any decent website builder can do or (b) things that nobody should want any decent website builder to do.

    “Lets you change the complete design of your site at the click of a mouse”? Um, yeah, that’s called a style sheet or theme.

    “Your site’s visitors can enjoy a fresh new look every time they visit your site”? Let me, a non-web design professional, count the ways in which that’s a good idea. Okay, I’m done — I counted zero ways in which that’s a good idea. And just to be sure, I counted twice.

    And apparently they’ve cornered the market on adding annoying mp3s and videos to their websites. Somebody let MySpace know that they’ve got competition.