Lexington, SC (Paul Kirby) – The Carolina Trader, a weekly classic print and digital way of buying, selling, or trading almost anything, has been sold by a Lexington based company to a Lexington based company. Since 1977, the classified ads paper simply known as “The Trader,” was a reliable source to buy everything from a gun to a couch, and anything else you could imagine. It also provided small businesses a source to run inexpensive ads that would circulate each week that hawked a variety of things from yard barns to tree services.
The Carolina Trader original owners Bill and Kate Barrett founded it on the premise that people could list their items for sale now and pay a small percentage of the sale price once the item sold. Their catch phrase has always been, “Buy, Sell or Trade.” Bruner Publishing of Lexington, who had printed the paper on newspaper style stock through a process called web press printing, a way to run a high volume of publications quickly, bought The Trader several years ago and had been running it until they decided to go out of business. Bruner was thought to be the last web press printers in the Midlands today. The business that bought The Carolina Trader did not buy Bruner Publishing or their print equipment and business.
The Carolina Trader is unique in that it is a classified ad only paper. It was distributed throughout the state of South Carolina. Most of its distribution was in the central part of the SC and sold in local stores.
The new owner said that the print edition is not currently being continued. The all-digital version will be much like the original, but it will be improved to give the user the feel of the paper as it was in its hay day. Ads for large items like land or homes will be done as prepaid as it was in the past. There will still be prepaid ads for small businesses at a reasonable price and the pay when you sell ads will still be run for less expensive items. The highest amount for those is currently in the $30 per ad range. The only difference, the new owner said, is that the site will be more user friendly, have some ads on the page that opens as you go to the site, and he will be using social media to promote items listed for sale. “We plan to aggressively market The Carolina Trader so that its user will get even more value for their ad dollar.” In the past, The Carolina Trader came out weekly. The all-digital-version updates each day. At some point in the future, the printed version may be revived.
The online version can be accessed at https://www.carolianatrader.com. Although the paper version of The Carolina Trader was $1.00 in stores, the on-line version’s subscription actually saves the consumer money. On-line subscriptions are just $3.00 per month or $8.45 for a three-month subscription. You can place all ads on-line or reach The Carolina Trader by telephone at (803) 781-8900. Customers can pay using a credit or debit card or Paypal.
