Bidkolo
A social marketplace helping people find a new homes for their unwanted items through auctions.
Bidkolo is an easy-to-use online marketplace facilitating the sale of millions of secondhand items through auctions. We’re a mobile-first fast-paced bidding app where you can auction some of your least used items for some cash as well as win bids on your favorite items.
Contrary to most auction-style listings, the starting price for all items listed on BidKolo is 0$ and increments each time someone makes a new, higher bid until finally, no other bidders are willing to offer more than the most recent bid. The highest bidder takes the item.
With our main focus being circularity and sustainability, the idea of starting bid prices from 0$ helps to ensure that every item gets the best chance at finding a new home/owner. Our bidding system enables buyers to purchase an item at the price which soothes them rather than being compelled to buy at a particular price. The vision is to change consumer behavior towards second hand, promote reuse and make second hand more accessible.
Bidkolo was created to fight fashion’s waste, to help address the problem of environmental pollution experienced specifically in the town of Douala and Cameroon at large.
Trucks of garbage are dumped and burnt everyday, a lot of them filled with millions of good reusable items disposed by people who couldn’t find another user for their items. According to statistics on Numbeo, Douala the economic capital of Cameroon is one of the most polluted cities in Africa and our current fashion-consumption practices contributes highly to it. Globally, Fashion brands are now producing almost twice the amount of clothing than they used to few years ago and tempting shoppers with their incredibly low prices to purchase these mass-produced items made from substandard textiles. This uncontrolled use has been the source of tons of contaminated soil.
Over 2 million people living in Douala are affected by this continues influx of new items which never get used to their full potential then end up getting dumped in landfills and later incinerated. Poor people, who cannot afford to protect themselves from the negative impacts of pollution, end up suffering the most.
Bidkolo was created as a way to power up and introduce a circular economy. Having a platform that enables people make money from their used items will encourage more people to purchase better quality items knowing they would still be in good condition for a resell when it no longer serves them. Hence reducing the purchase of fast fashion item.
Our solution serves people seeking to de-clutter their space using a more sustainable approach, people seeking to make some cash from their clutter as well as people looking for a cost effective ways to be able to afford expensive items.
Currently there is no local platform which addresses the issue of people wanting to giveaway the items they no longer need. We found that someone could purchase a brand new item with the intention to use just ones for a particular occasion then becomes stuck with the item at home because they can’t find a sustainable way to get rid of it. With our approach these people can easily put their items on auction for bids and buyers get a fun and interactive online bargaining experience with many users finding and winning amazing items for unbelievable prices.
Even though our solution caters to a vast dynamic of people, we find that our business model appeals most especially to millennials and people of generation Z who may not always have the budget to purchase brand new high designer items but trust that they can turn to our app to find some great bargains.
We've carried out extensive market research through the use of polls on social media(Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp) and questionnaires on google docs to identify the key points we need to focus on when designing our solution. We also did a little simulation of our solution on Instagram to find out how our prospective users reacted to our proposed solution.
- Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts (Sustainability)
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
Our product is in the prototype phase. We tested our first prototype on Instagram where we created an online shop proposing used items for auctions to help us analyze the market's reaction to our solution. With the level of positive response we got from that we have been able to fine tune our solution and currently we are working on the app development.
- A new use of an existing technology (e.g. application to a new problem or in a new location)
Our application is a mobile first platform with a familiar online marketplace structure look and a fun interactive feel. Our app is built using Flutter on the front-end and a PHP back-end and will be available on both web and mobile devices with both web and mobile versions using one database communicating through API calls. Bids will be done in real time and we plan on using push notifications to keep user engagements on the app.
- Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
- Big Data
- Software and Mobile Applications
- Cameroon
By next year we hope to have served over 200,000 people with our solution, atleast 100,000 active users and sensitized over 1 million people and more to regard secondhand as cool again.
We hope with our app, we able empower young entrepreneurial minds to use the app as a means to get a bit of extra money through selling their old clothes and stuff.
We want our app to encourage people to buy more of goods that can last to promote the idea of collaborative consumption.
For now, total circularity may seem like a fringe phenomenon, we are trying to make the first impact towards climate change in the little ways we can by impacting younger consumers to be more intentional about sustainability through the products they buy.
We believe in circular fashion and we are trying to make sure that quality items can have several lives.
The measurable indicators we will use to measure our progress will be
- The number of downloads our app gets on playstore and appstore
- The number of visits on the marketplace website.
- How many returning buyers and active users we get per month.
- How many new users sign up and User feedback on the app
- etc.
Sorting out effective logistics might be a challenge to scaling due to poor town planning. A remedy to that will be setting up drop off shops in various locations nationwide so buyers can pickup purchased item but doing that will be quite costly for the business.
Another challenge will be convincing a population so accustomed to throwing away home goods and buying brand new stuff that they need to start reselling and purchasing secondhand.
Our team is made up of people of diverse backgrounds and each person brings in a unique technical skill to the project. Bright who is currently doing her masters in accounting oversees all our finances and provides key advises on financial obligations. Lesly is our technical director with over 5 years of experience in app development and server administration. Antibess is the project Lead and front end developer packed with a huge zeal for the project’s success and commits to keeping the team motivated on delivery of tasks.
- No
- Yes