Mila is a ” services and needs platform” for local people to help each other. Just like Zaarly or TaskRabbit. Founded in early 2012, it was spun off from Coresystems, a Cloud service provider. Originally from Switzerland, it launched Chinese versions of the Web service and mobile apps on Android and iOS on July 1st in China.
Having set up a subsidiary in Shanghai, the company seems serious about China market. It has reached partnership with China Unicom who would help promote Mila’s mobile app on its app store. The company said they’d customize Mila for china and Asia, willing to “make big changes to please the Asian people”. It supports Alipay, the prevailing payments service in China and takes 2% commission fee from a deal.
Zhubajie is a well-known service in this sector in China that was founded way back in 2006, though it wan’t originally designed for local people to help each other. The service claims there are eight million users on the platform, from professional designers to ordinary people who’d like to run errands for others. The platform takes a 20% commission rate. But till today it hasn’t become a nation-wide service that a user would think of whenever he or she is in need. In 2011 Zhubajie received funding from IDG.
It’s more likely that Chinese users would turn to classifieds sites, 58, Baixing or Ganji, when a local babysitter or plumber is needed. With well-recognized brands and a large number of users, those classifieds sites still could hardly make profits. And there are problems faced with them, such as fake listings or frauds. For outsiders like Mila, it could be even harder to run such a business here.
就是个换了马甲的广告平台