One common way to get rid of pre-loved clothes is to sell your pieces online. Some people choose to post them on Facebook, some people opt to sell their clothes by posting them on platforms like eBay or Lelong.
With the rise of mobile apps, nowadays many things are just an app away, same goes to mobile shopping. You can easily take a photo of your product and began selling your item right from an app. Recently we came across a new mobile marketplace app named ShoppingKaki with such an attempt.
Introducing ShoppingKaki
ShoppingKaki is backed by 701Search which is the parent company of Mudah.my. Founded in Malaysia earlier this year in April, ShoppingKaki boasts of a simple and easy way to sell your products. Similar to popular mobile marketplace Carousell and Duriana, ShoppingKaki is a platform made available for the community of shoppers, innovative artists as well as manufacturing sellers to sell their products and items.
For those who are not familiar with local slang, the word “kaki” means leg in Malay, and “shopping kaki” is a colloquialism similar to shopaholic.
Unlike Carousell or Duriana, ShoppingKaki specifically targets university students in Malaysia, as these are the group of smartphone users who constantly engage with their peers through social media platforms as well as indulging in online shopping.
In fact, coming across ShoppingKaki was a coincidence because I went back to my Alma mater to run an errand. Currently the team can be seen running roadshows at local campuses such as TARC University College, Taylor’s University, to demonstrate their app.
The ShoppingKaki app is currently available on iOS and Android devices. Here is a quick look at the platform.
App Walkthrough
If you are familiar with Carousell, then ShoppingKaki should be no problem for you to use, as both apps’ user interface consist of many similarities.
As soon as you open the app, you can shop for items according to the category, ranging from books, women’s fashion, men’s fashion, arts and design, beauty, hobbies and many more. In addition, you are also given the option to connect with other users by following them so that you would never miss their posted items.
Here are a few things that I like about ShoppingKaki.
1. The UI is pretty.
There is a saying about how you only have one chance to make a first good impression. The first thing that caught my attention was its well designed interface.
Each of the categories are nicely labelled with Tumblr-esque pictures, which makes the layout of the app impressive.
2. The chat system is efficient.
If you are interested to buy something, just tap on the ‘chat to buy’ button away and message the seller in the chatbox. Before that, make sure you have signed up for an account via Facebook or email.
Other than that, I like its messaging function. This is because most of the time when you are filing a report or complaint, you have to email them. But ShoppingKaki makes it easy, all you need to do is go to their Message Center and send them a message if you have any issues.
Final Verdict
Ever since Carousell was created, many similar apps have popped up, such as Durianna, Letgo, SnapSell, Shopee and more.
ShoppingKaki is still fairly new, according to its Google Play page, it has been downloaded between 5,000 – 10,000 times. For an app that just released less than 6 months, this is quite an impressive achievement.
However there’s still much that the ShoppingKaki team can do in terms of marketing the app. After all, there needs to be a well balanced number of both buyers and sellers for the app to be better received. Perhaps they could engage with popular social media influencers in the local social media scenes as these people are mostly followed by the Gen-Y and Gen-Z mobile users in Malaysia.