Swapit Update: Sell with your iPhone (second hand and new)

After launching our very first version of Swapit on the Apple App Store a while ago, and numerous updates and feature launches in between, today we launched the most wanted Swapit feature on iPhone: You can now Sell your items whether they’re new or pre-loved, you decide.

GET THE SWAPIT UPDATE NOW:
http://get.swapit.la/now

We’ve been working hard to get this feature out as quickly as possible. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than expected. In this particular release it’s not just about allowing people to post items for sale. You also need to be able to edit an item, take it offline, mark it as sold, manage your buyers and so on. There are all these little bits and pieces that take user experience to the next level and we are meticulously working on making them available to you in just the best way we can imagine.

In fact, this update comes with over 30 changes. Here is a quick list of some of the most important changes:

• Added SELL and GIVE AWAY of items (incl. edit, mark sold, active/inactive)
• Added push notification handling for
  • incoming interested buyers of your items
  • reminder for posted items you sell or give away
  • new likes on items
  • new comments on items
• Added “Notifications” section to the Inbox
• Resolved an issue with “Open Chat” button in item details

Furthermore, we’ve put in some important performance enhancements and resolved several other minor bugs and issues.

IMPORTANT NOTICE to iPhone Users: Do Not Kill!

Swapit uses push notifications to deliver chat messages and notifications to your device. If you force-close Swapit you will not receive any such notifications until you restart Swapit or your device. We recommend not to force-close Swapit.

84% of iPhone users we asked, are force-closing their apps. That’s a surprise to me — especially as it does NOT save any battery, like it used to many years ago. So if you’re one of those 84%, you’re not making a difference in terms of battery savings by force-closing your apps, but some of those apps might actually stop receiving push notifications then. That’s also the case for Swapit. It’s nothing we can do about, it’s a special case defined by iOS and we have to abide by that. In short, force-closing apps just makes your phone’s performance worse rather than better – generally speaking.

Read more about this topic at: Apple’s software SVP says quitting multitasking apps not necessary, won’t offer improved battery life

 

ANDROID USERS

Your app has been updated too, earlier this week. You can head directly to Google Play and get the latest update too. Though, our changes weren’t as significant as on the iPhone, we’re always looking out for you and you got quite some nifty little tweaks and enhancements under-the-hood with the latest update.

Get the latest Swapit today from: http://get.swapit.la/now

 

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Swapit beta 7 – Launched – New Location Relevance

Last week we launched swapit beta 7 on Google Play.

Download the latest swapit version from:

http://get.swapit.la

Location-Relevant New Items

While we are talking about this in every single pitch and to potential customers, we haven’t put very much emphasis on the location-relevance of our items, here on our blog – yet. From the onset, we have built swapit with a location-based core for each and every item. Read all about that in our very first blog post “The idea behind swapit”.

With this recently released beta 7 of swapit, we are taking the location-relevance one step further. While each and every item has always had a location associated to itself, and swapit’s listing of items is purely shown by distance from the user (i.e. potential buyer), we did not focus on the buyer’s location — until now.

Up until just before the launch of swapit beta 7, all new items that were posted on swapit, were broadcast to all users of swapit — all across our launch-market Hong Kong.

Nearby Buyer’s First

Swapit beta 7 now puts the buyers in full control. Every new item that is being posted on swapit now only triggers a notification to everyone who is nearby. In this sense, “nearby” is a rather arbitrary term which by default is set to 2 km (1.24 mi) for all users. That means, if you post an item at your home, only potential buyers within a 2 km radius are being notified. The proximity of 2 km is a default setting and users are free to adjust that setting to either of these: 500 m, 1 km, 2 km (default), 5 km, 8 km and all.

This strong focus on the location-relevance of new items is aimed at achieving several goals:

Goal 1: Less Notifications

Swapit was experiencing a fast growth in users and items being posted. Read all about it at “Coping with a Constantly Increasing Flow of Pre-Loved Items”. At the same time, all users of swapit were receiving notifications for every single item that was posted. While quite a number of people actually liked that, it was annoying to a larger number of people. Until beta 6, swapit only had the one master switch that allowed to turn such notifications either on or off. So many folks actually turned their notifications off, which was totally understandable. With our new proximity-based push notifications for new items, A LOT fewer new item notifications are now being dispatched to each user.

Goal 2: Higher Relevance

By combining each new item notification with the recipient’s (read “potential buyer’s”) location, each such notification has a much stronger relevance to the recipient. The idea is very simple: A potential buyer is more likely to buy an item when it is easy and fast for him or her to get it. In the online retail world, Amazon for example accomplishes that with it’s famous – and patented – one-click-ordering.

In the swapit world we believe, a potential buyer of a second hand item is much more likely to buy that item from his or her neighbor rather than from someone across town. There is also a higher sense of security for people that are based nearby. There is a psychological sense of ‘neighborhood’ and ‘community’, even if Hong Kong’s lifestyle is a rather anonymous one in that sense. Furthermore, there is an undoubtedly great advantage of saving time, when you can just go to the next building, buy the bar stool you always wanted and be back on your sofa and enjoy a fresh beer five minutes later.

An item that is being sold nearby, is much more relevant to the potential buyer than an item that is sold at the other end of town.

Goal 3: Higher Engagement

The result of achieving goals 1 and 2 above, leads to a much higher engagement with swapit in the long run. Every single app, software or even hardware product, is much more successful if it encourages a high engagement rate.

There are many metrics, we are using to measure the engagement of our swapit users with the app and all arrows are pointing up. In the short run, we expect the effect described in goal 1 to lead to a slightly lower engagement rate because all of a sudden, less people receive new item notifications. In the long run, however, this will be beneficial because we are engaging our users with the content in swapit in a much more relevant manner. We strongly believe this is the best way to provide the right content to the user at the right time. It is only one of our first steps into the right direction. Many more are on our roadmap and are aiming at increasing engagement by increasing the relevance content that is being presented to potential buyers.

Give it a try! Download swapit today and let us know if you like it: http://get.swapit.la