Buyer Benefits
wayMadAds is a great place for buyers. Compared to traditional classifieds, we give you the power to really find what you want. No more flipping through page after page of ads that you have no interest in. And if you enjoy just browsing through the ads, you can still do that, and since we allow sellers to post at least one free picture, browsing at wayMadAds is a lot more fun.
Free to join
Let's get this out of the way right now. There is no charge to join, no charge to contact sellers, no charge for anything as a buyer. Sellers pay a very modest listing fee for their ad and that's it. And it is so low, sellers shouldn't feel the need to jack the price up just to pay for the ad. You don't even have to join to browse, but we do require everyone to join to use our system to contact sellers. This is actually a benefit as it is an incentive to our sellers to know that only registered members are contacting them, which helps cut back on the chance of spam and scam buyers as well. You should always use common sense and some caution whether you are a seller or a buyer, but these little added measures help to decrease the chances of problems.
Search
Let's face it, search is a beautiful thing. It's not perfect, but it sure makes things a lot easier. You can use the full search or the Quick Search below the navigation from any page, even the home page.
You can search across the ads or within specific categories. You can limit your search by price range, keywords in the title and/or descriptions, look for whole words or partial word match, or even search for an ad by it's ID if you saw it posted elsewhere. Or you may just want to limit the ads within a certain number of miles of you.
We think you will find that wayMadAds offers you the most complete search around. We know you are looking for information and we make sure that our members have every ability to provide as much information as they want when they list an ad. The ability to add up to 2,000 characters in the ad description alone is pretty incredible, but let's forget about that for a second. Not counting any search terms, look at how many ad details you can use to find exactly what you are looking for:
- houses for sale - additional search criteria: over 70
- apartments for rent - additional search criteria: over 90
- vehicles - additional search criteria: over 70
- jobs - additional search criteria: over 20
We don't recommend trying to use all of these as it may be impossible to find an ad that matches every detail, but it does allow you to pick some of those must haves and limit your search by that. Most sites give you a very limited, broad search, and we've all searched and found something that we've totally fallen in love with, just to learn that there is some critical detail that takes it completely out of the running... they don't allow dogs and you aren't about to give up yours no matter how great the apartment is, or it's the car of your dreams if only you knew or wanted to know how to drive a stick shift, or what about that perfect job, except you are only interested in jobs for non-profits that are on a bus route? We hope to eliminate those crushings moments.
Mad Match Alerts
Ever have a hard to find item you've been looking for? Or you really need something that is really popular and every time you find an ad it is sold by the time you reach the seller? Mad Match Alerts are for you. You create alerts based on ad categories and keywords, just like you would use if you were searching. Except now we do the searching, in fact we search every ad as it is being placed, and when one matches we email it to you. You can add as many alerts as you would like and you can delete them at any time. And it's all free. There's always a chance that something may slip by, so you should still check the site, but this can give you the jump on a popular item.
Photos and Detailed Descriptions
Sellers can post one free photo with their ad and they can add several more at minimal cost. We also give sellers more than enough room to add detailed descriptions of what they are selling. As a buyer, you'll know considerably more about anything you are looking at on wayMadAds than traditional classifieds. If your needs are very specific, this can be a great benefit to you and the seller as it eliminates a lot of wasted time since you may be able to eliminate ads that won't meet your needs just by their photos or descriptions.
24/7 Access
You can browse and search for ads anytime you want. No need for the latest edition as we are always up to date, and we even show you some of the newest posted ads whenever you visit and what's really popular. The only time you won't be able to access the site is during periodic maintenance, which is done at off-hours.
Favorites
Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of ads, especially as you are browsing through randomly, or when you are looking and comparing a number of ads. When you view an ad, you can add it to your Favorites, and then access all of your favorite ads from your My Mad account page under Buyer Tools. It will show you the ad title, the date the ad was placed, when you added it to your Favorites, and provide a link back to the ad. You can add as many favorites as you would like and delete them at any time.
Mapping
If the seller has provided mapping information when they created the ad, you can pull up a map to their location from their ad page. This is especially great for real estate, "real" auction, and garage or yard sale type listings. Not only will it provide you a map that you can print, you can also get driving directions from your location. Sure beats trying to figure out those cryptic directions added to most ads with what few characters they had left to use. "Trn Rt Main Lt Oak 2 Blue"... what?!
Printer Friendly
If you've ever printed anything from a website, then you'll appreciate wayMadAds. Have you ever noticed when you print something really important, and inch or two on the right hand side usually gets cut off? Luckily, the site's navigation prints beautifully for what it's worth. When you print from wayMadAds, we strip away the side columns, the header, and the navigation since these obviously aren't useful in a printed copy. You'll notice that the printed page won't look exactly the same as what you see on screen, it's not meant to, but it is meant to make sure you get the information you wanted.
Seller's Other Ads
Some sellers may list multiple things to sell. It makes sense for sellers since they may be taking phone calls or emails anyway, might as well run ads for a number of things at once. As a buyer, this can be a great way to see what else they are selling that you might be interested in. If they are selling multiple items that you are interested in, it might be worthwhile to ask for a discount. As a seller, if I have 3 items for sale and you are willing to buy all three, I might be more than happy to knock a little off of the total price just to make things easy, especially if they are items that I will be arranging for people to come look at... time is money. You also get the benefit of making one trip instead of three.
Paid Ads
Other than special promotional ads or other unique circumstances, the sellers have paid for ad space to sell what they are advertising. While they sound great, free ad sites often fall prey to tons of garbage ads for things that you spent all day deleting from your email, questionable ads that you may not want to be exposed to, ads for things that probably aren't worth paying to advertise for, and are a feeding ground for spammers to gather email addresses. While there is never any guarantee of the value and condition of anything that a seller is advertising, having to pay for an ad makes sellers question whether it is worth the cost and how likely it will sell. Free ad sites tend to fall prey to more scammers as well. Why? Because they have nothing to lose since it doesn't cost anything to post there. Paying to post garbage ads doesn't make much sense though, at least in most cases, and it also creates more of a paper-trail, which is not something that most scammers want to do.