There’s a new app on the market designed to save buyers and sellers who frequent marketplaces including eBay, Craigslist and Facebook from having to constantly visit several sites to keep tabs on products.
The new app, coined Quick, consolidates popular marketplaces. So, for example, a seller can create a listing for a vintage dresser only once using the app and post it to several mobile marketplaces automatically. Buyers on the other hand can use the app to see all the items sellers have listed on marketplaces via the Quick marketplace tool in one spot.
The free app is available from Google Play for Android devices and will be launching for the iPhone later this year, Quick says.
“You can do almost anything from your smartphone—from paying bills to video chatting in real-time—but even with the huge boom in mobile commerce, it’s still a challenge to easily sell and buy things,” says Doug Brenhouse, co-founder and president of Quick. “The existing online platforms just don’t translate to the possibilities a smartphone presents. We created Quick to empower better mobile sales—to take the time and hassle out of selling and buying across multiple sites by integrating them all into one mobile app.”
For sellers, the app enables mobile users to scan bar codes and take pictures of their products. The app then pulls relevant product descriptions from the web. A seller chooses the description that fits and Quick posts the listing across all the marketplaces where a seller wants to list it.
Another feature, called Friends-Only, allows individual sellers to set special pricing for their Facebook friends, and lets stores and professional sellers offer special discounts exclusively to friends or loyal customers.
The app also lets sellers and buyers chat via mobile instant message to decide how to complete a sale. For example, a local shopper might want to pick up the product while a shopper in another state might like to have it shipped.
Other seller features include custom eBay templates for listings and free, unlimited eBay image hosting. Sellers can also use the app to upload unlimited images to their Craigslist ads and create multiple Craigslist signatures for various products that appear at the bottom of each Craigslist posting.
The app also monitors all listings across marketplaces so that if an item sells on eBay, for example, the posting is removed from all other marketplaces.
The app is designed to save buyers time by putting all items that sellers use the Quick app to list into one consolidated marketplace—called the Quick Mobile Marketplace—enabling them to search one spot for many products. Buyers also can communicate and make offers to sellers via instant messaging and limit their searches to products being sold close to them by using the “Nearby” search button, which displays a map pinpointing what they are looking for within a 1- to 100-mile radius of their current location.
“As people increasingly turn to their smartphones to browse and shop, they are met with aging, complicated marketplaces and classifieds platforms that have not adapted to a clean, streamlined, effective mobile experience,” Brenhouse says. “Quick developed from this growing frustration—and is creating a faster, less expensive and more powerful way for buyers and sellers to connect on a local and national level.”
Quick is free for buyers and sellers, though the company says it will monetize the app in the future by charging buyers and sellers for additional services it will add to the app.