When the Ras Al Khaimah resident Morrad Irsane decided to purchase a pre-owned car last year, like most “netizens”, he began scouring online marketplaces. What he imagined to be a straightforward process of narrowing down options and a few phone calls to owners soon turned into a stressful experience and a dead end. Frustration led the French national to create an app to make life simpler for himself – and 7,000 UAE residents who want to buy and sell everything from cars and furniture to electronics and handicrafts with one swipe on their mobile phones.
A marketplace for smartphones
Melltoo Marketplace is a smartphone version of the classifieds section of a newspaper that combines the connectivity found on social-networking websites. Melltoo hit the Apple and Android stores this year and has already been downloaded by 30,000 people in the country.
“The idea came about when my husband was shortlisting different used cars and went through all these websites and classifieds sections in newspapers,” says Irsane’s wife, Sharene Lee, who is the co-founder of the app. “The process was so tedious and to top that, calling or emailing the owner was causing delays. Most of the time we wouldn’t even get a response.” Instead, Irsane began sending them messages on the messaging service Whatsapp and found that to be a more effective way of communication to seal deals.
Original article by Afshan Ahmed
Continue reading at The National:
Melltoo Me the UAE’s new buying and selling app
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