#AskPS
E-Commerce
Disrupting the used item market Industry?
Thinesh Ven .

Topic: OLX, Quikr and Secondhand Market in India.

Hi Pushstarters, help needed. I am trying to understand the pain points consumers face with platforms such as OLX and Quikr and what other social shopping features you would like in a P2P marketppace.

Many of you are familiar with OLX and Quikr. I'd like your opinion on:

1. Whats your general feel towards shopping for secondhand items (what do you buy from these platforms etc.)?

2. What is it that you like/dislike or think can be improved with these platforms (Ui/Ux, customer support product selection etc.)?

Feel free to share any horror stories you might have from using these platforms!

Originally Posted Here
14 Comments

Vikram Sathey

Countless scamsters on olx

Chinni Mahesh

With cred like users, if we can have a second hand market with verified users and peer rating...

It may give a cheat proof system

Thinesh Van

Exactly! What we did was to have a dual peer rating (buyer rates seller & seller rates buyer once an offer is accepted-if either party tries to scam/cheat the other party you can leave a feedback for all to see.

Bhavik Jain

Scammers. Fake product seller on olx, better UI for website

Thinesh Van

Noted! Yes, we feel the same. Being at such an early stage, UI is something we are focusing our attention on (though we're only on mobile right now- as for fake products/seller i think we could possible solve it at a first stage with image recognition which would flag potential fake products).

Niteen Katariya

As already mentioned, scamsters pose a big problem. Apart from that the genuinity of the product involved in transaction is always in question, the buyer never knows the quality. If there is 3rd party that certifies the product, in this case the platform, the buyers can now be assured of the quality and the acceptance immediately improves.

Thinesh Van

Agreed! I think Quikr tried their hand at this and failed miserably! haha. We'll see what we can do with an assured quality feature down the road, we've got some ideas brewing:)

Amit Baliga

Fake sellers, scams, leakage of numbers to third party, unsolicited calls/messages, unreliable goods.

Kshitij Patil

Here's the problem with P2P Second Hand/Used products platforms: The middlemen cannot have any kind of QC in place...and if they do decide to have the QC in place, it basically will cost so much to the end consumer that the price benefit will vanish.

The only way to do this is if you pass on the cost of QC to the seller, which may not motivate sellers to come aboard.

I feel a developing country cannot have a model successfully working at scale since the standard of living is so low and the number of people so high that it all translates to a lower goodwill en masse since enforcement of law/punishment is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT.

Thinesh Van

Agreed! However I think afew factors could come into play to solve this issue. With the right community of seller/buyers we could have a higher number of responsible users, and with technology we could lower the ranking of the QC goods such that one would never even get to see it because it so low down the rank.

But in either case, yes if the model pointed out above were to work we would be a community driven p2p marketplace and the masses would not benefit from using the app.

Kshitij Patil

Your second sentence is easier imagined than having existed.
It's not an impossible business but it's very capital intensive with very little upside even at scale.

Akathma Devi Nimmagadda

I guess scams must be already shared in the comments. So I am sharing rest of my points.

Apart from the platform and features, I feel it is about how people use it. They need to educated on how to communicate through screen to create trust. How to show a Pic or video of the product, how to be responsive.

About the features, there should be some intelligence to not allow keywords which are not relevant to the product in the photographs. Otherwise, when I search for a cycle, sofa and oven come up.🤦‍♀️

Having links to the sellers and buyer requests social media profiles might help. This can be optional but if the share it adds more value.

Thinesh Van

Really good points! I guess instagram and Fb could help with the educating part through FAQ contents which is what we are trying to do at the moment.

Prithviraj Mallick

There are many fraud sellers in OLX. A week ago, I was looking for an item which is fairly expensive and saw many sellers listed that product at an attractive price which will surely draw anyone's attention. As I called a few of them, was told to pay avery small amount as advance and then they will deliver the product at my doorstep. I was also told the item may not be available if I do not hurry as they are getting calls from other buyers. I just knew it's fraud so I reported to OLX. As I dialled the other numbers, discovered they all belong to the same community. What I expected from OLX to kick these sellers out and ban them but that didn't happen.
There should be a strict filtration process to prevent these kind of scammers listing their products. Anyone can be victim.

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