Sell Anything With You Phone-Cam

Here's one more step along the path of the mobile phone's transformation from an audio device into a visual language tool. And, by the way, another example of why newspapers, having sustained themselves for many years on classified ads, have one more nail in the coffin.

Gumiyo invites you to make a listing to sell anything you can photograph all from your mobile phone. You just shoot an image—still or video—of what you want to sell. [They nicely remind you that if you shoot in portrait mode that your ad will look, er, a little cockeyed when it's up.] Then add some text, and post it to their site.

So you can sell off the farm via seductive images right from your mobile.

And what a boon for the booster. In this illustration, imagine the the guy with the green hand is about to boost that nice orange bike. He's got it catalogued and advertised before it takes him half a minute to open the Kryptonite lock with a Bic pencil. [Via Smartmobs]

Comments

[Dakota Reese Brown]

I saw this a while back. What I don't understand is why Amazon & Paypal/eBay would just kind of idly implement this as a stand-alone service rather as an extension to their auctions?

[Shuki Lehavi]

To answer the question above, Amazon and other sites deal with items that require no communication between a buyer and a seller. They are the internet vending machines – put a dollar, get a dvd.

Gumiyo targets the items where a conversation between the buyer and the seller is paramount to a successful conclusion of the deal. These items range from houses, cars, furniture, household appliances and so on.

Along with the easy posting (featured above), Gumiyo offers a different shopping experience. Tell Gumiyo what you are looking for and as soon as your item is found, Gumiyo will reach out to you and let you know by email or SMS.
From your mobile phone or PC - One click will show you the pictures and description, the second click will allow you to connect (email, SMS, phone) with the seller. Simple, quick, mobile and efficient!

Thank you,

Shuki

[Dakota Reese]

Thanks for the reply, but your response doesn't really address the "rather [than] as an extension to their auctions."

There is probably an overage of networked points of sale (Internet + Mobile, etc.), eBay and Amazon have strength in that they are trusted entities. What I don't understand is that if these companies trust the tech enough to invest in it, why aren't they incorporating into their current p2p / buyer & seller conversations (auctions)?

With the US mobile market being as hesitant as it is, wouldn't Gumiyo have a much high chance of success as an added feature rather than a stand-alone?

[Shuki Lehavi]

Dakota,

I think that the mobile user is a radically different user then the pc user. The PC user is accessible once or twice a day, yet they will be in front of screen for 10-15 minutes at a time. The mobile user is accessible ALL day long, but will not spend in front of the screen more then 15 seconds at a time. A mature site would need to completely overhaul their security schema, their application flow and their messaging to properly adapt for the mobile user. Many companies today attempt to avoid this re-design and think that offering a paired down version of their website, scaled to fit the 3rd screen is acceptable.

At Gumiyo.com, we offer complete feature parity between the web experience and the mobile experience. We invest a lot of effort to ensure that the mobile site and our flows take full advantage of the mobile capabilities. For example, a buyer will receive an alert when a desired item is found. The screen that comes up after the alert is specifically designed to give the buyer all the information at a glance. We know that the buyer will spend no more then 3 seconds looking at the screen. The same is true for the entire mobile site.

To answer your original question – I cannot represent any of the companies you mentioned above and explain why they are not properly adapting to the mobile client. However, I can testify that creating a useful and efficient mobile site is a delicate task, and perhaps that is one of the contingency points.
You need to observe your users and listen to them carefully – which is what we doing on a daily basis.

Have a great weekend,

Shuki