Online classifieds are short ads that people post on a website or app to sell something, such as a used bike, a car, a phone or a flat, or to find a tenant or a buyer. The name comes from the classified ads pages of newspapers, where ads were sorted into classes such as "vehicles" and "property". Online, the buyer and the seller find each other through the site, and then close the deal themselves.
A classifieds site does very little in the deal itself. It does not usually take the payment, check the item or arrange delivery. It shows the ad to people nearby who are searching for that kind of item, and it lets them contact the seller by chat or phone. Because the deal is in person, classifieds work best for large or local things: vehicles, furniture, property and services.
Take, for example, a family in Nagpur who want to sell their six-year-old scooter. The father takes photos, writes "Scooter, 2019, 28,000 km, single owner" and asks ₹38,000. The ad is free. A week later, he pays a small fee to have it shown at the top of the results for a few days. Four people send messages. One of them comes to see the scooter, takes a test ride and offers ₹35,000. They agree on ₹36,000. The buyer pays by UPI on the spot, and the two of them go to the regional transport office's website to transfer the registration.
Classifieds sites earn money in three main ways: from sellers who pay to have their ads shown higher, from dealers and estate agents who pay a monthly fee to post many ads, and from advertising. Used cars are so large a category that they have their own sites, which also inspect cars and arrange loans. The page on the used car marketplace covers them.
Because the site does not stand between buyer and seller, scams are a real risk. A common one targets sellers. A fake buyer says he will pay and sends a UPI request or a QR code, and asks the seller to enter the UPI PIN "to receive the money". But in UPI, you enter your PIN only to pay, never to receive. This trick is a form of phishing. Classifieds sites employ teams, and increasingly software, to find fake ads and fake accounts, as described in trust and safety investigation.
How are classifieds different from recommerce? On a recommerce marketplace, the marketplace holds the payment until the item arrives, can check the item and settles disputes, and it charges a fee for doing so. On a classifieds site, the buyer and seller do all of that themselves.