When it comes to secondhand deals, they can be troublesome to manage. If you’re a buyer, you have to worry about the shipping, the price, and fraud. If you are a seller, you have to take pictures, write descriptions, and negotiate back and forth.
If everything mentioned above could be done easily on your smartphone, wouldn’t that be a lot easier?
5miles is a location-based secondhand marketplace app, with its name suggesting its local focus. After all, no one bothers to buy any secondhand items far away from him. Local is the only secondhand marketplace.
Everything about 5miles is intended to be quick and easy. “You can upload your item within 20 seconds. Take picture, enter the title and … done. For the item description, you don’t even need to write anything, because we support voice description,” cofounder James said.
The 5miles team are mostly ecommerce veterans. Cofounder Lu Liang, having once worked for Taobao and been the CTO of listed company LightInTheBox, has been playing with the ecommerce market and data for years. He believes that the future of ecommerce is mobile, which is how this product was born. “We care about small merchants, like secondhand item sellers, who are mostly ignored by the big companies in this area,” explained Lu.
The startup successfully raised US$5 million funding last year and the next step is to set up a US office. “Most of our users are middle class females who tend to be treasure hunters, or shopping enthusiasts based in the States.” Currently the most popular items on 5miles are designer handbags and electronic devices, according to the company.
Though Craigslist remains a main destination for secondhand shoppers, its old-school experience has just never changed. That’s why many have swarmed into this area, seeking to update the experience by offering better services. 5miles seems to be one of them.
The app now supports five languages in over 100 countries, and is available on both iOS and Android platform.
Editing by Mike Cormack (@bucketoftongues)
smart idea, easy use