EcoFlip – Green Craigslist Live for One Month

EcoFlip functions very similar to Craigslist in that it is also intended for free classifieds but with one clear distinction: the classifieds here are only intended to advertise and find everything that is green and eco-friendly. The major goal for the site is told to be increasing environmental awareness of the community and helping green products and services find those that are interested in them.

The site has two approaches to monetization: donations and advertising. First of all, while the site positions itself as a place for free classifieds, it does offer every poster to determine if they are willing to pay for it and how much. So when you post your ad you can actually send the service the suggested amount of $5 per advertisement (more or less if you so choose). In this manner the website can expect to have some contributions to support the service as a free one in general. There’s also a special section for “featured ads” on the site that is already populated with some eco-friendly services. Posting in this section is suggested to cost $49.

But obviously such an approach does not guarantee a stable revenue stream so the site also features some ads from Google AdSense which is probably supposed to add some guaranteed revenue if all the posters choose not to pay anything for their classified ads.

The site has very nice (predictably green) looks and is quite easy to navigate. All the listings here are sorted by categories:

• Green living
• Household products
• EcoPersonals (basically a dating section for green-oriented people)
• Reuse & Recycle
• Fuel-Efficient Vehicles
• Eco-Friendly Services
• Sustainable Community (for environmental-friendly activities and even jobs)

It is important that here you can publish listings and search for the green products or services based on your location - the site supports a total of over 40 countries and for each country there’s a selection of regions you can search for listings in.

EcoFlip has been live exactly for a month now and since it has not received much coverage from the blogosphere, it does not look like the most heavy-populated site - even though from what I have seen there is a decent amount of listings in various categories already. So if you try to lead a sustainable living, I’d suggest you bookmark EcoFlip.org for when you want to buy/sell or recycle something.