Quick Guide To Executing Your Local Buy-sell Marketplace App Like Carousell

Sanjay Kidecha
4 min readSep 28, 2021

Why store and block your space with unwanted items when you could make some money by selling them off? — Seller’s philosophy.

Why spend more on brand new stuff when you can get the same at a low price? — Buyer’s philosophy.

Carousell, letgo, and OfferUp like buy and sell marketplaces are subsiding the “Google” of classified ad platform Craiglist with the mentioned two philosophies. Such apps have adopted a model that lets users sell anything, and buyers can purchase from their neighborhoods.

“Carousell, Online classifieds marketplace, became Singapore’s latest tech unicorn, raising fund at $1.1 Billion Valuation.”

From preloved electronics, furniture, home appliances, car appliances, pet supplies, and even properties to lifestyle, business, and many services, you can find everything on Carousell.

However, what accelerates the app’s progress is its functionality and user interface. The founder has well picked a social media-like interface that lets users follow another user. Furthermore, users can engage with any post and hit like and comment on the post. Since the concept is tested and already loved by millions of users, it becomes easier for startups to use this insight and create an out-of-the-box solution.

If you’re reading this, it means you want to make an app like Carousell. Well, that’s good for your business. However, many are already trying to dictate the global-local buy-sell market. Hence, your journey won’t be easy, requiring hard work from app designing to marketing.

So let me make your job a bit breeze with insight into its business model, revenue model, and features. Let’s start with the Business Model for the Carousell clone app.

Carousell Business Model

The Singapore-based consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer marketplace, Carousell offers its services through mobile and web applications. The app doesn’t focus on one specific domain but a broad spectrum of categories. Though, it isn’t possible to make money by letting users buy and sell things for free. In that case, they monetize the app through multiple models like:

Monetization Models for Carousell-like app:

In-app purchase — Additional pay for featuring users’ ads on the top of the app screen for a certain period and offer advanced features.

Delivery — Facilitating buyers and sellers with the delivery service also helps the company widen the location constraints as users won’t have to care about shipment.

Ads — Carousell sells its own currency that allows users to purchase Carousell Ads to drive views to their listings and increase sales. Plus, users can use these coins to promote and bring their profile to the spotlight to grow their reach.

That’s monetizing like a boss! You can also develop a unique idea to spice up your local buy-sell marketplace to attract more users. After all the secret is: More User = More Transactions = More Revenue.

Features to make your buy-sell app fly

FEATURES FOR BUYERS

  • Registration and login
  • Sign up with Facebook or other social media
  • User authorization to prevent any fraudulent
  • Set up profile
  • Browse classified ads
  • Fetch user real-time location to display nearer ads
  • Search by keywords to find items quickly
  • Product condition label to identify if the product is brand new or how old it is
  • Follow reliable sellers to see and buy items from them hassle-free
  • Like and add items to favorites
  • Seller & product information
  • Chat with sellers
  • In-app payment solution
  • Delivery services
  • Track order
  • Review and comment section

FEATURES FOR SELLERS

  • Registration and login
  • Sign up with Facebook or other social media
  • Seller authorization to prevent any fraudulent
  • Create, edit, post, and delete ads
  • Upload photos and videos of products to provide a view from each angle
  • Manage buyer requests
  • Chat with buyers
  • Promote ads
  • Offer discounts
  • Hire delivery services
  • In-app payment gateways
  • Transaction receipt
  • Respond to comments
  • Generate report

ADMINISTRATOR

  • Approve user registration by verifying their profile
  • Manage classifieds
  • Manage recommendations to provide to buyers
  • Ensure secure payment transactions
  • Assign a driver for delivery service
  • Content management system
  • Generate invoice for both parties
  • Offer in-app promotional to sellers
  • Manage premium ads
  • Analytical tools for app marketing

To Conclude,

Lastly, to execute your local buy-sell marketplace app development plan, you get two options: custom app development or off-shelf solution. There is a considerable difference between both approaches.

With the ready-made solution, you get limited access to customize your offerings or else have to pay more for desired features. In contrast, when you develop from scratch, you can create your classified ad app like Carousell as you want without any limit.

Although, the ball is in your court. But the clock is ticking, and you better hurry before the market gets even fierce. There’s no room for confusion. In case you have any, contact directly to an expert.

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Sanjay Kidecha

Sanjay Kidecha is the CFO of Kody Technolab. He loves to explore and write on latest Web & Mobile App Development Trends. https://kodytechnolab.com/