We're improving the London business services category

Fire Dragon

We'd like to tell you about some important improvements we're making to help clean up the Business Services category on Gumtree London.

The Business Services category is visited more than 500,000 times each month, and while this gives a great opportunity for businesses to advertise their services, you've been telling us that the category in London is becoming over-run with duplicate ads. This makes it harder for everyone to find what they're looking for. Advertisers and users have requested that we "clean up" this category and so we're going to charge a nominal fee of £4.95 to post an ad in the Business Services category from Tuesday 24th February onwards.

It will cost the same for Businesses to repost their ads.

We hope this change will help you find what you are looking for more easily and without finding lots of duplicate ads.

As ever, we'd love to hear what you think.

coopdv1 · Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 15 Location: London

BEFORE TARGETING THE INNOCENT, YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE YOUR RESEARCH ON FOREIGNERS PLACING DUPLICATE ADS, I HAVE COMPLAINED LOADS, YOU,VE DESTROYED THE AVERAGE HONEST BUSINESS TRYING TO KEEP THE BUSINESS ALIVE!

friendlyuser · Joined: 24 Feb 2009 Posts: 7

mikebcool · Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 1

I have to tend to agree with these threads. it is just another way for you guys to climb the money tree and become what you promised not to!
You should be ashamed of your selfs!
This will Hurt alot of people.. I,m not going to use your site anymore.

Regards

tim_london_uk · Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 12

Its their programme remember... but I feel its just a money making thing and as per the times we are in smells a bit really... to blame Johnny foriegner ismacks.... blame the government... anyways... good luck to them but I wont be using it anymore...

coopdv1 · Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 15 Location: London

GUMTREE, IF YOU THINK YOUR IMPROVING THIS SITE YOU ARE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE, GUMTREE GOT EVEN WORSE, A PAYING SITE, ANOTHER, RIP OFF, EXPLOITING BUSINESSES TRYING TO KEEP AFLOAT BY CHARGING THEM, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO IMPROVE THE SITE, ITS SIMPLE, TARGET THE MULTIPLE AD PISS TAKERS, ARE DONT GIVE THEM A WARNING, BARR THEM IMMEDIATELY, THATS WHY THIS COUNTRY IS IN A MESS, NO FIRM ACTION, JUST EXCUSES!!!!!

coopdv1 · Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 15 Location: London

I WILL ONLY USE THIS SITE FOR FREE SPEECH, ANYTHING ELSE, LET GUMTREE SWING! I WONT BE PAYING A PENNY!

bevenro · Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Posts: 1

Like most of my friends, I have used this service and recommended it to everyone--it's free--open--easy to use--and fun.

Funny that I had to try to submit my little ad offering language tuition (why? since I'm a broke PhD student offering a little part-time service) and I get this Submit Payment button.

Was something wrong? I tried again. No. Was I informed? Was Gumtree upfront about this little "business improvement"?

What a crock of sh*t. I had to log on TO THIS FORUM to figure out what was going on.

Sorry Gumtree--that's a sly, cheap stunt. I'd expect it from Google or Facebook.

I won't be using this site again unless I receive a decent explanation. Up fornt about changing the business model? OK, that I would reluctantly accept. Using this tirckery? No.

gm · Joined: 03 Mar 2009 Posts: 1

This is a very disappointing move from Gumtree. The whole point about the website is that it’s free and that it actually works, but now they are charging their users I am sure they will abandon it in droves.

The Gumtree team should realize that if they charge five pounds most people will no longer post ads. This will mean that there are fewer ads for potential customers to see, which in turn will mean that potential customers will eventually begin to look elsewhere.

This move will not benefit those with something to sell, and will likely disadvantage those people looking for a particular service as there will be fewer advertisers offering their skills. Ultimately, Gumtree itself will suffer as people abandon the site in favour of others.

I previously used the service to place adverts for my language tuition. My success rate in terms of recruiting new students was fairly low – replies were generally limited in number and I would find roughly one new student every two or three months - so it is certainly not worthwhile for me to pay the five pounds per month the website is demanding.

In view of all this, I will not be using Gumtree in future unless there is a change of policy. Gumtree team, I urge you reconsider. This episode will do nothing but harm your name and reputation, and ultimately lead to this section of your website becoming irrelevant and pointless. I therefore look forward to a prompt change in your policy and a return to how it was before.

If you really do need to do something about spamming and duplicate ads, there must be other solutions.

Goodbye Gumtree.

drackyy · Joined: 04 Mar 2009 Posts: 2

Hi gumtree well first of all ure a great website and used u about two years and I will use u more even if I have to pay but also I think that some category of business shouldn't been charged only bulding services where more duplicates appears so thank you and keep it on that way.

City Plumber · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 399 Location: Essex

I think it's a great idea to charge a minmal fee for advertising, should have done it a long time ago. All you people that a moaning why? What do you do with all your money? Do you not invest in your own businesses or do you all rely on freebies? I'm tempted to start advertising on Gumtree again..... If only they'd start vetting the dodgy traders that advertise then I might be tempted... Laughing

Fire Dragon · Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:58 pm Post subject:

Thank you for your comments ! We have been listening to every comment made very closely and we really appreciate this feedback .

We’re really happy to see that the number of duplicate ads has gone down dramatically after making this change and that businesses are getting much better and more equal visibility for their ads. Our hope is that the business advertisers amongst you will find that you can post an ad much less frequently to get a good response now that you don’t have to battle for visibility amongst the hundreds of duplicated ads every day. We have heard from many of you that have noticed the improvements and we hope that this continues. We will keep a close eye on it and continue to listen to and learn from your feedback.

We knew this change wouldn’t be immediately popular with everyone. It wasn’t an easy decision because our mantra is to keep the Gumtree free and, as many users including abey_wisehead on this thread can attest to, this was a decision that we put off for a long time while we tried to solve the problems with visibility in many other ways. Unfortunately the time has now come to make this change.

Finally, we know that Health and Beauty still has some problems with the wrong type of Massage ads appearing. Our users continue to report these ads to us and we take action to remove them from the site extremely quickly. Please continue to use the “Report this ad” link – this is the fastest way to help us get these ads off Gumtree. We don’t want these ads on the site and we are not profiting from them. We are looking at the category and considering further solutions, you should see more improvements soon.

Thanks again for your comments, please keep them coming.

domi · Joined: 26 Mar 2009 Posts: 1

What a lame excuse to start making money. That was why the gumtree has been so popular beacuse it was for free. I can bet lots of people will find other ways to post their ads for free and maybe soon they will be some other website created based on gumtree which will not charge people and then gumtree will be forgotten.... I was going to put an ad today but find out now I have to pay for it ,I prefer to look for other sites that will be for free then go to gumtree.

I am sure less people will use gumtree now and am not suprised.I do not really see the future of gumtree if it is not going to be changed back.

NGS · Joined: 28 Apr 2009 Posts: 1

I for one always used to use Gumtree to post my business ad's as i always to get work from it and google my site up near the top. Since the charge as come in i wont be using the ad's again on here.....i thought this was going to be a free site for everyone?????

Very dissapointed now Crying or Very sad

OzTravelTip · Joined: 02 May 2009 Posts: 3 Location: Australia

Please help! After using this service a couple of months ago things have changed a little. Fair enough too. Duplicate ads suck.
I am from Australia, & tried to place an ad yesterday in the Travel section and paid a fee of 19 quid! plus extras. The ad was immediately withdrawn, and now I am wondering if Gumtree is going to allow me another chance, to show all the readers what I've got for them thats so worth paying 19 quid to feature for a couple of days?

aditya0099 · Joined: 07 Feb 2008 Posts: 1

Hi
I put an ad in bussiness services few days back it was live but when i made some editing after that i my is not live now when i am trying to manage my ad i am getting a msg Unfortunately your ad is currently unavailable. As long as your ad meets Gumtree posting rules it will be back on the site shortly. Please check back soon. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

I have paid 34 pounds for home page ad my posting reference is 38599911 please email me asap at aditya@allosbt.com

LAURETTA82 · Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 3

I am not able to complete the form for my add for languange tuition and this is affeting my business a lot . the problem is that I am not able to fill the field of my email address and I do not understand why. please can anyone give me a solution about tis matter I really need to post my add
thank you