How to Efficiently Find Deals on Craigslist using Google Reader

Written by Dean Norman
Friday, 29 February 2008
I bought my car four or five months ago using this technique. I got it for $1,300 under Kelley Blue Book. With a bit of patience I found exactly the car I wanted for a price that couldn't be beat. The key is to know exactly what you want. The rest will fall in to place rather quickly using the technique I'll outline below. I have decided I would like to get an iPhone. I want the 8GB model. I am going to show you, step by step, how I am going to find a good deal on an iPhone using Google Reader to efficiently search through Craigslist. First, a bit of background. Google Reader ( www.google.com/reader ) is an RSS Feed Reader. It creates a centralized place for people to go to see if the sites they enjoy have been updated. I have a few news feeds on my sites. These are RSS feeds, as well. All of them could be subscribed to using Google Reader. This way, if you have 25 blogs that you really like, you just subscribe to their feeds and then visit your Google Reader account every so often to see if any new posts have been made. I have an RSS feed on my site - you could subscribe to it with Google Reader. Google Reader is free. Craigslist ( www.craigslist.org ) is an online community. People create posts about everything in different sections designed for the types of posts that should be in them. There are sections for rants and raves, people trying to find a date, so on and so forth. Craigslist, in this instance, is a great place to find products for sale. Some of the posts are absolute scams, others are genuinely great deals. It is up to you to use your good judgement and figure out which is which. This technique is for people who already know what they want to buy on Craigslist. The more specific you get in your search, the less time you will waste looking through posts that don't apply to what you're looking for. Google Reader lessens this effect, but doesn't kill it entirely. There is a lot of junk on Craigslist :) What it will do is allow you to search through multiple locales of Craigslist for your product by entering your search terms one time for each locale and then simply logging in to Google Reader whenever you have time to see if more items have been posted that match your search. If you have ever repeatedly returned to Craigslist and performed the same search over and over, you'll realize how much time this will save you. Because of the time and energy saved, you'll be able to be more patient and find the deal you want. Here we go! Step One: Sign up for Google Reader. (free) If you already have ANY GOOGLE ACCOUNT, this step does not apply. Simply activate your Google Reader account by going to http://www.google.com/reader and signing in with your Google account's username (email address) and password. You probably have a Google account if you: 1. Use Gmail 2. Use Google Adwords 3. Use Google Analytics without Adwords 4. Use Google Adsense 5. Use any of Google's Products Step Two: Perform a search on Craigslist, as Concisely as Possible, for the Product You Want To Buy. Go to http://www.craigslist.org. If you need to, click on the closest geographical area to you. On the main Craigslist page you'll see a "search" box half way down the left-most column of the page. Don't use this. Although it will work, it is going to give you a lot of posts that you are probably not interested in - it's not specific enough. Instead, go to the section you are interested in. In the case of my iPhone, electronics. Use as many of the search options as you can. Enter a maximum price if you have one, enter mileage for automobiles, check mark the "has image" if you're only interested in listings with photos - create the perfect search. Click "Search" Step Three: Find and Click the "RSS" Link/Button. It is in the bottom right hand corner of the page in orange. If you use Firefox, there is an orange RSS subscription icon in the address bar. If you're not using Firefox, why aren't you? Step Four: Add This RSS Feed to Google Reader At this point, one of two things will happen. If you have subscribed to a feed before, and instructed your browser to always use Google Reader to subscribe to feeds, you'll get a page that asks if you want it to go on your iGoogle homepage or straight to Google Reader. Choose the latter. If you haven't ever subscribed to a feed before your browser should ask you what service you would like to use to subscribe to this feed - choose Google Reader. If none of the above happens for you there is one more option. You can right click (ctrl-click for Mac) the RSS link (lower right hand corner of page) and choose "copy link location." Then visit Google Reader. Once logged in to Reader, in the left-hand column, about half way down the page is a bold hyperlink that says ADD SUBSCRIPTION. Clicking on it opens a layer requesting an address. Guess which address you're going to use! At this point simply paste the contents of your clipboard (ctrl-V for PC and Apple-V for Mac) into this field and click ADD. Step Five: Add more "Craigslists" to Google Reader. This step is where the magic really happens. This is the step where Google Reader really allows you to leverage Craigslist. Here's how: Go back to Craigslist. On the right hand side you'll notice a list of different geographical locations. Each one of these is a different "Craigslist" for that area. In my iPhone instance, it doesn't matter too much what the area is - I can have an iPhone shipped from about anywhere for fairly cheap. Considering how rural my locale is to begin with, I'll probably have to have it shipped even if I found it on my most local Craigslist. I started in the S.F. Bay Craigslist - now I'll choose Sacramento. Choose one of these other locales and repeat steps 2 through 4. To the left is a screenshot of my Google Reader after I added all of the Craigslist locales that I wanted to search for an iPhone. That's what you want it to end up looking like. I ended up subscribing to 4 locales: San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Chico, and Humboldt County. Now all I have to do is log in to Google Reader to check 4 Craigslist Locales and I won't be wasting the time of going to each one individually and typing in my search information again and again and again. Another benefit of Google Reader is that you can Star posts. Each post has a little star to the left of it that, if clicked, sort of check marks that particular post for future reference. This way you can star the posts you might be interested in and refer to them later. The level of specificity in your searches should be high (unless you want all the crap posts in rants ie. "Then I got this text on my iPhone and I couldn't believe it..." (You better believe that one's going to show up in Google Reader!) To wrap it up... This technique is great for saving time and energy. I recommend it for bigger ticket items - things you're willing to shop around for. Choosing those items wisely will be the subject of a future article... --Dean *Edit* I found I was getting a ridiculous load of crap when all I searched for was "iPhone," so I switched to "8gb iPhone" with good results. Google Reader makes it easier to dig through crap posts (use the spacebar to go directly to the next post), but I do have my limits. I am also amazed at the number of people offering to unlock or jailbreak your iPhone for you...
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 March 2008 )