Polish Craigslist?

April 16, 2008 6:28 AM

What is the Polish equivalent of Craigslist?

I'm going to be in the market this fall for a bunch of things like a bicycle and some used housewares. A site that includes the whole country and not just, say, Warsaw and Krakow - I'll be in the Bydgoszcz-Torun area - would be great. Polish-language sites are, of course, fine.

Dziękuję!

posted by mdonley to shopping (8 comments total)

How about the Polish version of Craigslist?

http://warsaw.craigslist.pl/

Although it has "warsaw" in the URL, there is nothing to indicate on the site that it does not cover further afield.
posted by oclipa at 6:47 AM on April 16, 2008

Or perhaps Gumtree? It looks like they have a few locations.
posted by mosessis at 7:16 AM on April 16, 2008

Also, just knowing how few Polish people seem to be on Metafilter (there's at least a couple living there, but still not many), my strategy would be to go to places where Polish people tend to hang out online and ask them. For example, I would go to couchsurfing and find someone who looks friendly and send them a message asking. Couchsurfers are friendly, more likely to be into things like furniture swapping, and many seem to genuinely like helping other people find their way around their country.

I tried finding Wikipedia articles in Polish for gumtree and craigslist, but they weren't there, leading me to think that not many people in Poland use these two services. Annoyingly, the wikipedia in polski doesn't even have articles for things like "online classifieds" or even "classified advertising"! Knowing how fleshed out the Polish wikipedia usually seems, this is why I'd go to a place like couchsurfing, to see if such a thing even exists.

It's possible that the system is still like it is here, where there's just a paper weekly that people advertise in. In that case, you'll be able to pick it up when you get to the town. That's how I got all my furniture for my current place.
posted by mosessis at 7:34 AM on April 16, 2008

I think pracowity is in Poland; contact him via MeMail maybe?
posted by Doohickie at 7:54 AM on April 16, 2008

gumtree is used the most i think - nasze klasze the most popular although i dont think they sell anything though - they may have a message board you could use - i'll go and ask my kochanie about this and get back to you.
posted by sgt.serenity at 8:09 AM on April 16, 2008

I'm not in touch with stuff like that. I would try ruelle; I bet she knows all.
posted by pracowity at 8:15 AM on April 16, 2008

One thing I might suggest having moved from Ann Arbor (where Craigslist gets you immediate attention) to Dublin, Ireland (where they use Gumtree, sparingly) is that, particularly for countries in Europe where there is not a history of wealth there is not much of a market for used goods. At least that was my experience in Dublin. People rarely had surplus furniture and the like, although they probably will in the future as Ireland is becoming quite wealthy. But, it's a very American thing to have so much extra stuff that it spawns Web sites where people just give away stuff to be rid of it. Also Ireland is still very much a mobile phone rather than a social internet kind of place, although young people were really into Beebo. Good luck with Gumtree, but it may come down to scrounging around servite shops and the like when you get there.
posted by Slothrop at 9:16 AM on April 16, 2008

gumtree.pl is the closest thing to craigslist. Allegro is more commercial (like a Polish ebay) but it's also widely used for second-hand stuff; you can even find quite a few things for free if you're willing to take care of the transport.
posted by juva at 1:31 PM on April 16, 2008