Swapit Update: Performance & Stability Improvements

We’ve just updated Swapit on iPhone and Android. It’s now ready for you to download.

Get Your Swapit Update: http://get.swapit.la/now

 

Recently, we’ve been working on several bigger changes on our Swapit marketplace platform. It is great that the potential Swapit has, shows in the fact that we are mentioned with other leading e-commerce startups in Hong Kong and that our communities on other social media like Facebook are growing rapidly. Motivated by such great feedback, we are working tirelessly to improve our app by publishing update after update, and making improvements every step of the time.

This current update comes mainly with cosmetic changes as well as performance and stability improvements. An increased number of Swapit users means also an increased challenge in making sure our product works on all supported devices (phones and tablets) out there. We are monitoring closely the performance of Swapit we take swift action should there be any issues on any devices out there.

Current Release Versions:

• Android: 1.15.4.1
• iOS: 1.6.6

Note: We will soon make this latest release on both platforms mandatory for everyone.

Sharing to Facebook Messenger (new on iOS)

On iPhones it is now possible to easily share to Facebook Messenger with just one click of a button. At each item listing you can now see a Facebook Messenger icon, which allows you to click & share that item in the easiest way possible.

 

REMINDER: How to Feature Your First Item for Free

It’s really simple to get your first item to be featured for free. Just follow these few steps:

1. Post an item for sale.
2. View the item (either right after posting, or right from your user profile).
3. Hit the “FEATURE” button at the bottom.
4. Open the “Coupon Code” bar.
5. Enter “FIRSTFEATURE” coupon code into the field and hit “APPLY”.
6. Click the “Feature Your Listing — FREE”.
7. Done! Congratulations! Your item is now featured!

Here are these steps in screen shots, so you know exactly what I am referring to:

It’s really that easy. Everyone can use the FIRSTFEATURE coupon code once to feature one of their items.

Stay tuned for future updates. At our blog, you’re absolutely at the right place. Feel free to sign up by email to stay on top of the game.

Have you tried Swapit yet? It’s free. You can get it here: http://get.swapit.la/now

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Swapit Update: A New Home

We’ve just updated Swapit again and this time with a big new revamp of Swapit’s home screen!

Get Your Swapit Update Today: http://get.swapit.la/now

Note: The crash that occurred on startup of Swapit on iOS in the last release has been resolved. Please get the latest version.

After several smaller changes in previous versions, Swapit’s latest update was a rather significant one. At least in terms of user interface and navigational entry points. We’ve been conducting extensive tests with our users, competition analysis and constantly collect feedback on the usage of Swapit. As a result, we believe this current change brings a lot of benefits to all users of Swapit.

New Home Screen

The new Swapit home screen has been carefully designed to offer easy to understand entry points to our Swapit marketplace. A few months back, we did introduce Quick Select to Swapit’s navigation. Now, we’ve basically blown up our Quick Select choices with beautiful pictures and a clear name, and we have extended them to cover more topics of interest.

As a result, it is now much easier to quickly jump right into a category that might of interest to the buyer who is browsing Swapit. It’s a quicker way to get to the product you’re really interested in.

Preventing Subconscious Compartmentalization

While that’s a mouth full, it clearly boils it down to the point. We’ve always been strong believers in the fact that people should be able to browse our catalog of 220,000+ listings (that grow by the minute!) as quickly and as easily as possible. That was the main reason, why right after starting the Swapit app, you previously saw a list of items posted nearby your current location. While the beauty of that was, Swapit’s content looked different for every user’s app launch. It was customized to that current location.

Compartmentalization. The problem with the above described situation, was that first-time users saw whatever items were being offered nearby right from the onset. If a nearby seller was specializing women’s fashion, then everyone in that vicinity would see women’s fashion when they first opened the app. The human’s nature of compartmentalizing first-time impressions kicked in, and for those folks Swapit was right away an app just for women’s fashion. If that user was a gadget fan, he would then most likely close the app and never open it again, because he is not interested in women’s fashion. Yet, Swapit has some really great gadgets listed on its marketplace.

To prevent such kind of compartmentalization that happens when first opening Swapit, we’ve now got our beautiful list Quick Select images that show right away the vast diversity of items and product categories that are available on Swapit.

Several other small improvements and bug fixes did also make their way into this release. It’s needless to say, that they improve stability and performance. We’ve also strengthened our fight against spam and scam attempts. That is running in full steam and we’ve already suspended several accounts, ensuring Swapit is a secure and trusted marketplace to conduct safe trade.

Stay tuned for future updates. At our blog, you’re absolutely at the right place. Feel free to sign up by email to stay on top of the game.

Have you tried Swapit yet? It’s free. You can get it here: http://get.swapit.la/now

Swapit Update: Single Column Browsing for Easier Discovery

We’ve just updated Swapit with many small changes, but one more significant one:

Single Column Browsing

Get Your Swapit Update Today: http://get.swapit.la/now

Swapit Update: Quick Select & Post Title/Description Translation

We’ve just updated Swapit with two key improvements:

1. Quick Select popular categories and filter settings
2. Translate Post Title and Description to and from 100 languages.

Get Your Update Swapit Today: http://get.swapit.la/now

We’re constantly improving Swapit and all changes Swapit introduces are based on our user feedback and demand.

This new update is already available on Google Play and will soon also be available on the Apple App Store.

HOW QUICK SELECT WORKS

We’ve added a small horizontal bar at the top of our list where you can now quickly select popular categories and filter settings. Here is how it looks like:

The top left image shows the standard way our Swapit product browse list looks like. After clicking one of the pre-defined “quick select” buttons, you can now quickly narrow down the content that’s shown to you. It’s easy, useful, and works like charm.

One of the reasons, why we introduced this feature, was that people didn’t realize – at a first glance – that there is such way to narrow down and filter the choice of products you see. From the onset, Swapit has some quite sophisticated filters, which allow you to only show what you’re interested in. However, many people don’t discover that at their first use of Swapit. As a result, they see a lot of items they might not be interested in right now, and as a result of that, they believe Swapit is not for them.

It’s that psychological compartmentalization, which then puts Swapit as an app and marketplace into that corner of the user’s brain where it might be useful, but is not at this moment in time. Swapit got used less because of that. In order to reduce this behavior, we’ve introduced our Quick Select bar. On purpose, we want Swapit to require as minimal or best no education on its usage at all. It just simply needs to work out-of-the-box and feel natural to our users.

Anyhow, just give it a try. We’re sure you like it.

HOW POST TRANSLATIONS WORK

Again, we’ve built this in the most easy way possible. If an item post is in a language you do not speak (check your profile settings), you will see a simple “See Translation” button in it. By clicking that button, the post’s title and description is being translated into the language your phone is set to.

The translation might take a second or two as we are using cognitive background processing to ensure a close-enough translation of such text.

Have you tried Swapit yet? Get it from: http://get.swapit.la/now

Swapit Update: Chat Across 100 Languages with Instant Translations

Swapit is all about bringing people together. We’ve always been about removing barriers and with this release, Swapit buyers can chat with sellers across 100 different languages. It’s easy, instant, helps sellers close their sale and buyers get what they really want.

Update Swapit today: http://get.swapit.la/now

We’ve created the easiest way you can imagine, to communicate with someone who does not speak your language. It’s a free feature in Swapit and has just been rolled out across the globe in our iPhone and Android apps.

How Chat Translations Work

When you receive a chat message in a language you do not speak, you will now see a small “See Translation” button right next to that chat message. When you tap it, we translate that chat message into your own language and show it to you. This is how it may look like:

Not translated.

Translated to English.

Furthermore, let’s see how it looks for different chat partners.

Chat what the seller (Patrick) sees, who only speaks English and German.

Chat what the buyer (Couchpotato) sees, who only speaks Chinese and Tagalog.

The translations are not perfect, but they are sufficient to get the gist of it. They help buyers to communicate with sellers who do not speak their language. It’s something many of our users have asked for and we really like to listen and act on our user feedback. Thanks again to all of our loyal Swapit users! You really rock!

More Information While You Chat

In any chat window you might have with a buyer or a seller, you now see a re-designed header, which shows you the item the chat is about and your chat partner. At the same time, we now also show you whether it’s an item you’re selling and what languages your chat partner is speaking.

Languages which you speak and your chat partner speaks, are highlighted. So it’s easy for you to determine, that you two can actually communicate in the language you have in common.

How Swapit Knows About My Language

We introduced a new language setting in your user profile. When you launch your app for the first time, Swapit reads the language you have set your phone to, and sets it in Swapit as a language you speak. That’s the language, chat messages will be translated to when you hit the “See Translation” button.

In your profile you can also add additional languages you speak. That will help us identify matches between the languages you speak and your chat partner speaks. There is no upper limit to the number of languages you can add here. So even the Pope with his 7 spoken languages can join us!

Sale Posts In Your Language

In fact, we did not just improve chats. We’ve also added a more flexible setting when you’re posting items for sale. Up until recently, it was only possible to choose manually whether the item you post is in Chinese or in English. Now, you can choose any language you like. Similarly, the first time the post item screen opens, Swapit reads the language setting from the phone and sets that as a default language for the item you’re posting. We just assume you also post in the language you are using in your phone.

This language setting helps us sort through content on Swapit on a global scale.

Filter Items By Languages – Globally

Swapit is being used in dozens of countries and many different people with different nationalities who speak different languages are using it every day. When you open Swapit, you’ll automatically a list of items listed and you can jump right into them. Due to our standard search order setting of “by Distance”, all such items were posted nearby, which makes them most relevant to you.

Yet, in Swapit you’re also able to filter those items by language. Especially in multi-cultural cities like Hong Kong or in border areas, this is a very useful feature. Personally, my Chinese reading skills are very limited, so I do prefer item posts in English or German. So I can adjust this to my liking and only the items where I can read the title and description.

We’ve built a smart filter in this, though. Instead offering users to choose their languages of the item list out of the 100 languages we support, we offer you exactly the choices of languages, which are actually available by the current list of items. For example, if there are only items in the current result list, which are in English or Chinese, then you’ll be able to choose only between those two languages in the filter setting. It’s a quick one-tap switch to switch one language off.

Have you tried Swapit yet? Get it from: http://get.swapit.la/now

Swapit Updated with Redesigned Inbox

We’ve just updated Swapit on Google Play with some very nice new features. The iPhone app will be updated by the end of this week.

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

Some of the main changes in our latest update are:

REDESIGNED INBOX Simplified and yet more powerful.
We’ve been collecting a lot of feedback and one topic that always came up was our inbox. While we wanted to provide as much information as possible to all of you, all that information was quite cluttered across many different tabs inside the inbox. It made total sense to us, but there are many users who were a bit confused by this. 

We don’t like to reinvent the wheel for things where really smart people have thought a lot about. So we’ve taken a look at a lot of “inboxes” out there to see which approach will be the best solution. Facebook’s “inbox” in terms of separating “Messages” and “Notifications” seemed to be an approach that made a lot of sense.

So we went forward and re-designed our own inbox accordingly into: Private Chats and Notifications. On the right you can see a screen shot of that and we believe it is now much more clear that chats inside Swapit are actually private. In matter of fact, there was some confusion about that out there as well. So by simply calling it “Private Chats” instead of just “Chats”, we believe it’s much straight forward to understand the meaning.

The content of each message in the list has also been slightly polished to make it look more like our notification tab.

ALL NOTIFICATIONS At a glance.
Swapit communicates with you a lot through notifications. They usually come into your Notification Hub on Android and your Notification Center on iPhone first, where you can take direct action. At the same time, we keep track of all notifications you’ve received in Swapit’s inbox and particularly in the “Notifications” tab there. 

Previously, we had several tabs for notifications: buy interests, comments, new items. That was confusing and cluttered up the whole area there. At the same time, we didn’t show other notifications like “likes” when someone likes an item you’re liking too.

That’s now all combined into one simple yet very powerful “Notifications” tab. It collects all push messages you receive and provides a one-stop-shop to come back to, should you want to check out some older notifications too.

Previously, some notifications could be swiped away in the Notifications Hub/Center and they were gone forever. There was no way to get back to them. That is in the past now, and you’ll find all your notifications in our “Notifications” tab.

BULLETINS Keep you up to date.
We’ve now also integrated a way to reach out to you when we have some important news about Swapit. Say for example, we have some super cool new feature we’d like you try or we are again giving something away for free, then we can now let you know directly.

iPhone APP SELL
While this is not a new feature per-se, we believe not enough people know about this. So please spread the word and tell your friends that Swapit is now available for their iPhone too. 

It’s as simple on iPhone as it is on Android to post your items for sale. Give it a try today.

Have you tried Swapit yet? Get the latest Swapit today from: http://get.swapit.la/now

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