Show HN: I built a local/fast marketplace for used gadgets, games | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I built a local/fast marketplace for used gadgets, games

kloomo.com

25 pointsearlyriser39 comments

Looks very nice! Neatly executed. Here are a couple of quick observations/suggestions. I am not a UX designer so most of these are from my personal perspective.

- When I click on PS3/XBox 360/Wii, the page scrolls down and that's fine. However, it would be great to put a "Top" button somewhere to take the user back or ideally, make the "item" band containing Tablets, PS3, XBox 360... stick to the top.

- That brings me to my second point: This type of design is not scalable unless you are planning on supporting only Tablets, PS3s... See what I am saying?

- When I first visit your site, I would love to see you auto-detect my location instead of waiting for me to select one. See here for an example: http://html5demos.com/geo

- Too much space is wasted for each item cell. You can easily have two categories next to each other if the space permits. Think of making it resposive, for instance.

- What is the intuition behind the purchase/selling mechanism? Are you designing around some auction schemes? When I want to sell something, it does not ask me for a price. When I want to buy something, it is asking me for a price. So this seems closer to an auction mechanism than any other regular kind of a purchase. Why not explore mechanisms where you can let the seller specify a minimum amount he is willing to accept? This way you can eliminate spammy customers who are trying to purchase an iPad for $1 :)

That's all for now. Keep up the great work!

Wow, that's a big comment with great insights. I know it's not perfect, but as the phrase says "if you're not embarrassed by the 1st version, you've launched too late". I want to add some of the UI improvements you mention.

I didn't let the seller specify a minimum amount he's willing to accept because a)the listing could stay 1 year and the price will be dropping b) she just need to scan the 1st offers, ordered by offered amount.

Yes, it will be some spammy customer trying to buy iPads for $1, but every offer cost a credit, I hope that will discourage most of them.

Again, thanks for all your comments.

Looks like a fun product to build. When I see this type of marketplace I always wonder how you get a user base... why will people pay to list products here if there aren't many buyers in their city yet, and why would buyers pay to shop here if there aren't many sellers in their city yet? Why not use craigslist for free? I'm just genuinely curious how others tackle the chicken/egg problem.

This is a good question that I've asked to myself so many times.

The chicken/egg problem is not solved at this point because I'm just starting, but my plan is to attract videogame sellers in some big cities at the beginning. The nice thing with videogame sellers is that they are also buyers: I have Assassin's Creed & I want GTA V, for example. Then the first step is to bring some critical mass and grow the inventory.

This is a very different kind of marketplace, built by someone like me. I have some games in my mental wishlist but I'm not in a rush to buy them, also I'm a money saver, then the option to make offers and repost them until I got a deal is pretty convenient.

The same goes for selling, I'm not an active seller, what I want is just to click the items I have and I want to sell and wait for a good offer that could come tomorrow on in 5 months.

Those are qualities that other marketplaces (Ebay, Craigslist) don't have. Sure, Kloomo is more expensive (for $1) than Craigslist, but I want to believe it's more convenient in some ways (long listing period, easy listings). And compared to Ebay, it's a lot cheaper for a seller.

I'd love to see a typeahead especially for games. Then you import a more robust catalog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_3_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_xbox_360_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_games

have you considered more 'black hat' strategies for adoption?

http://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-do...

craiglist is quite the hub for used games where I live.

I was thinking about an input field with a filter function, but a typeahead is also good.

The focus is just quality and best-sellers. Not sure about bringing more games that less people had and less people want, I prefer to have the 20% that drives to 80% of sales.

I've been reading all those stories and I'll be working in something like that but more white hat :)

Looks good!

Minor fix: there are two generations of the Nexus 7 tablet, 2012 and 2013. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus#Nexus_7

You're right. I'll be adding it today.

Hello folks, thanks a lot for all your comments. Here's a freebie for the HN users. If you want to list all/or a good part of your games, just send me a msg romama( a t ) gmail and I'll give you 50 credits.

I like the idea a lot! I was trying to sign up but when I noticed the password as clear text that could be read by people around me in big fonts[1], it deterred me from going forward. Others may think similarly. Otherwise, the site is pretty cool, best of luck.

[1] http://tinypic.com/r/29mow12/5

This has been fixed. Now the password field is obscuring the characters. Sorry about that.

The thought about making it in just clear text was to make easier to detect a typo on the registration page. This wasn't the case of the login page, obscured since the beginning.

I know it is not meant for computers, but I have seen many of people selling Apple computers online since the models are pretty standardized. It could make the list too long, but I think it would be a good addition it.

You're absolutely right. I'm planning to add Apple laptops because it seems to be what people want and they have a big market segment. However I don't think I'll be adding other brands because they're too diluted and I'm still unsure about Apple desktops because it's not as easy to bring to a public place for an exchange.

Super minor thing I noticed: in your city drop-down list, you have "Kansas_city" instead of 'Kansas City' - looks like the string isn't being parsed properly like the others!

Thanks a lot! Fixed

This looks awesome; I think most folks who shopped these items on CL have envisioned this. Nice execution, I hope it blows up.

Might I have know something else about how did you build your credit system? Im interested in it for a uni project.

Sure, just send me an email if you want.

Looks nice, but I wish I didn't have to sign up to see what was available.

That's by design because buyers can make an offer on something that is not already available and when a listing for that item appears, the offer will be visible for the buyer.

But I'm taking notes on all the stuff people don't like. I want to show it in someway that doesn't discourage buyers to make offers for not available items.

agree - i want to see what's available before signing up.

Thumbs up for the design/ux, a good idea nicely executed I think!

Thanks a lot. I wanted to make the listings/offers as faster as possible.

If you add European cities too, I can be your first user in Berlin or anywhere in Greece.

I'll take that in consideration. And yes I want to go international once that the USA cities are consolidated.

Can we get Boise added to the list of cities?

Sure. I added it for you :)

Someplace mid-peninsula in the bay area would be nice too, like Mountain View, Palo Alto or similar.

I added Mountain View. Thanks for the tip.

What does "5 second listing" mean?

A listing take 5 seconds. Just 2 clicks (no description, no photo upload). English isn't my 1st language, is there a better way to express that?

One-click listing™

Two-click listing? 2-click listing?

I don't know, that was partially a joke :) 2-Click listing would be fine if you don't want to lie.

Very nice execution

ok. question is not about ui/mobile/web anything. it's how will you break chicken and egg. what's the creative marketing scheme to get that done? usually it involves cracking one side first vs. the other. in the used / deep discount space that typically means supply where supply siders are also users on the demand side. in b2c it means demand first.

i know local commerce like no one's business.

My idea is to bring the buyers first. Doing thing that doesn't scale the first weeks like inviting gamers personally and give free credits to grow the inventory. But I'd love to hear what do you suggest.

I like your idea of letting buyers express interest in things that aren't actually for sale yet, which helps sellers gauge what demand there is. But you do need to follow up quickly with sellers or the buyers will end up going elsewhere. Perhaps you could add something unique e.g. paying with Bitcoin?

CoinBase might be a good integration point for Biitcoin support.

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