Ever wanted to have a yard sale, but had neither a yard, nor a “Sale” sign handy? Or more importantly, didn’t have the resources to let a large number of people know? Yes, you can drop flyers in your building, but why be a litterbug?
Enter Melltoo – an app that runs right off of your smartphone (Android or iOS) and allows you to display your ‘for sale’ items to other users, as well as giving them a chance to IM you right from the app, and rate your items.
Do you really need another selling platform, you might think? And what’s this platform got that others don’t?
Well, to begin with, this is a smartphone app, as opposed to a website – snap a picture of what you’re selling, name it’s price, create your own market and wait for users to connect with you. Beats having to leave your phone number and email address on a public site, for sure.
Launched in Dubai in March 2014 by husband and wife entrepreneurs Morrad Irsane and Sharene Lee, the idea was one borne out of the sheer frustration of trying to buy a used car in the UAE, as explained in this video: http://youtu.be/0HL-LDK6Vjs
Where most people would vent their frustrations out to friends and on Facebook, Morrad decided that he wanted to build a grass roots social network that features user-generated listings and provides a buying and selling peer-to-peer platform with a “user-first” approach.
We downloaded the app on both Android and iOS, to try out the features, and really see what Melltoo is all about and how well it works. Some of the things we liked were:
Location based tracking
Melltoo checks your location and then finds you deals closest to you – and it’s pretty accurate.
Variety of categories
It doesn’t really matter what you want to buy or sell – you’ll find a category to list it under in Melltoo, plus they’re developing this segment even further as time goes by
Hashtag marketplaces
If you’re a seller, you can create your own marketplace in Meltoo, give it a name and a hashtag and users can find everything you’re selling right under that hashtag. This allows for seller ratings, as well as being able to find similar items listed together.
With over 20K+ downloads in just 7 weeks, Melltoo is already in the hands of plenty of people in the region. We asked Morrad how he’s marketing it and getting it across to people, and he informed us that much like the social network itself, even their marketing approach is fairly grass roots at the moment. The Melltoo team has been attending various start-ups conferences in the region, getting their app in the hands of influencers and talking to airline crew, who spend a lot of time abroad buying things and come back to Dubai to sell them – turns out, these people are some of the early adopters of the app.
It’s still fairly new, and although the app’s functionality is pretty good, we feel the iOS version in particular looks a bit heavy on the small real estate of even the iPhone 5S screen, but with the right marketing push, and enough downloads, it’s something that could pick up in the region and give used-items selling websites, Facebook shops and Insta-shops a run for their money.
