Trust me, it's a bargain!!!! (Adzooks.co.uk)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Adzooks.co.uk
Date:	17/08/08 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's free and easy to use

Disadvantages: Seems not to be well visited by potential buyers

Every time I look on the Web there seems to be yet another website offering you the opportunity to sell your unwanted knick-knacks for free. I have already used ItsMyMarket and Gumtree and, to be honest, I've been somewhat underwhelmed with the success I've had in disposing of those bits and pieces that have been filling up the wardrobes and cupboards. Freecycle, on the other hand, has been a roaring success. It seems that everyone expects something for nothing these days; no one wants to pay, not even second-hand prices.

Ever the optimist, I came across yet another website, Adzooks, and so decided I'd give it a try. The cost is only the time it takes to create an advert. Most adverts I have already posted on other sites so for the most part they could simply be recycled.

Adzooks, like Gumtree, is a regional website; there is no country-wide presence. Instead there are 15 counties or cities that handle local adverts. I have joined two, London and Surrey. If you are, as we are, close to two regions, it makes sense. Each website is identified by a URL in the format region.adzooks.co.uk where "region" is the name of the area covered by the website. So, the London one is, naturally, london.adzooks.co.uk, and the London website is the default, even if you enter www.adzooks.co.uk. However, you can reach the others from here.

As with Gumtree, Adzooks is another free ads website that does not require you to register. However, that's not to say that you can't create a user profile if you wish, it just isn't a prerequisite. Adzooks says, "Everybody likes to know who they're buying from.". So, if you want to post a profile of yourself then you can and you can tell your potential buyers a little bit about yourself and post a picture to show just what an honest face you've got. If you do create a profile then your active adverts will also be listed there.

So, to post an advert you simply go to the Home Page and click the "Post your free ad" link in the top left-hand corner. First you have to chose the correct category for the item that you want to advertise. The choices are not just limited to articles. You could also advertise accommodation that you have available or an event you are organising or maybe you are interested in an "encounter". May be you want to employ someone and so want to post a job. As with other such sites the list of things that you can publicise is quite broad. However, assuming you want to sell something then you would choose "For sale".

Next you select the type of item you want to advertise. You have choices such as Household, Audio/Visual, Motors, Sports equipment and so on. There is also an "Other" category for those things that don't fall into the categories available. Having selected your category the next thing you do is to compose your advert.

As with most such sites, you give you ad a catchy title and then add a fuller description. You also have to add a "Location" so that potential buyers will know how far you are away from them and whether or not the journey will be worth it. This is required.

You are also asked to add a Post Code but this is optional if you don't particularly want to publicise your precise address but you cannot simply specify just the first half of a Post Code. I have mentioned this to Adzooks but haven't had a useful response from them so I just leave the Post Code out entirely! If you do so you do get a warning from Adzooks that your advert will not appear in the "Browse by Location" pages. For a large area such as London this could be a problem. Of course, you could always lie and specify the Post Code of the local railway station for instance!

The first half of the Post Code should be perfectly adequate because, bizarrely, the search by post code facility only enables you to search by the first part of the post code! Also, the only post codes available to search are those valid for the Adzooks region in which you are posting the advert. Consequently, there would be not point in specifying a post code for London Adzooks if you don't actually live in London!

You can also add search tags to the advert to make it more likely to be found by anyone searching the site on keywords.

In order that you can be contacted about your ad by a potential buyer you give an email address but there are below this two options, both of which are to hide your email address! So, how are you contacted? Well, one way is that the buyer contacts you through Adzooks. The other option enable you to include contact details in the ad description. This could, of course, be directly via your email address!

Lastly there are tick boxes to permit you to be contacted by those who believe that they may have something of interest to you and also by Adzooks themselves. You have now composed your ad and the next thing that you can do is add some photos. If you are happy with the result than you can publish your ad, otherwise you can go back and re-edit it. Before the ad is published you have to tick that you accept Adzook's terms and conditions. I didn't see anything in them to which I would violently object!

The ad isn't posted immediately, you have to wait for the email with the URL link in it and click on that to activate the ad. This email is also how you find your ad after you've posted it, if you haven't created a profile on the site. The ad appears shortly afterwards on the Adzooks website. This may take as long as five minutes. It may also appear on the right of the Home Page under Latest Ads but this doesn't always seem to be the case. In any case, all that appears there is the title, price and location. This is another weak area of Adzooks.

Adverts are posted for 30 days after which they are automatically deleted. It is your responsibility to make sure that the item is reposted if not sold.

My view of Adzooks is that it is not as well designed a website as, for instance, ItsMyMarket, which, I believe, has got the formula about right. It's a pity that they haven't used the Home Page better so as to publicise the most recently posted adverts. Certainly my experience of successfully selling things on Adzooks has been no more or less successful than the others. Given that Adzooks is probably much less well-known than, for instance, the "market leader", Gumtree, it is probably less likely to be visited by potential buyers.

However, as it's free...

Summary: Yet another free ads website that is no more or less successful than the others