How do you create a buy and sell app that will compete with OfferUp?

The OfferUp app is a huge marketplace with huge traffic and, of course, huge revenue. But it also implies that it is developed, maintained and supported by a whole staff of specialists. They have their own data center, they have their own development departments, and they have their own helpdesk system. All of this requires a big investment. Let’s discuss how to create an app like OfferUp. 

When someone has an idea to do something similar, you have to understand the scale of the task and the investment they are willing to make in the project.

Investment is not the most important thing here. In the first place must stand: the meaning, the benefit, and the mission, what will bring to the world this project. If you decide to create a buy and sell app to make money, this project will simply fail. Anything that is based solely on monetary gain inevitably leads to failure. 

Therefore, the app should be of value, a useful extra service or an opportunity for its visitors, who are willing to go there and spend their time and their money.

Customers often have a much simpler understanding of how to create a buy and sell app. They don’t see what should be at the core of such a project. The creators of OfferUp had startup capital, lots of experience, and a staff of developers. They are the leaders of so-called classifieds, which include virtually every industry.

OfferUp is very actively scaling, expanding, thanks to the fact that they had huge startup capital and a huge technical staff, and the base on which they deployed this portal. So how do you create a buy and sell app and what do you consider for that?

How do I make money from the project?

If you decide to create a buy and sell app, you must know how the project will make you money. The app will be free for all users. But they will pay you for certain actions. The main ways of monetization:

• In-app advertising. This requires not only to create a buy and sell app, but also to make it popular. Sellers will be able to advertise their ad to thousands of users. 
• Subscription. Usually provides access to special features. 
• The payment for placing the ad. You can earn money from sellers. It is a question of payment for each ad, or a commission on sales. 
• Transaction fees. The most common way to monetize among those who choose to create a buy and sell app. Include a commission for the buyer. 
• External advertising. If you can make your project popular and in demand, reach out to external advertisers. This allows you to make the service for users completely free and thus attract even more target audience. 

How to create a buy and sell app: budget for the project

OfferUp had a huge base of knowledge and developers, experience and, of course, money, on which they started. When thinking about such a project, you should understand that it will need to be fed for more than one year. To create a buy and sell app, as well as promote it, you will constantly need money.

There must be a clear plan. To create a buy and sell app, you need to plan for annual development and investment. So just having a small amount to invest in an app and make a quick profit, or at least in a year or two, is not the fact that it will work. With this, too, you need to be careful and think carefully about your project.

Terms of Reference

You need to prescribe everything: what sections there will be, how the user’s personal account will be designed, how the product card will be designed, the home page. All of this should be recorded and documented. Based on these documents, the full terms of reference and assessment of project development will already be formed. 

Specificity and Expertise

This is closely related to the number one point — usefulness, meaning, mission. If you decide to create a buy and sell app, you need to make a project for a niche, for an industry, for specifics. And if a person doesn’t know the industry, but wants to invest there, that is a very risky investment. It is not certain that you will get the result.

That’s why projects managed by a specialist in this industry survive and develop. That is, if we have experience in sales, we can somehow bring that experience to the app. If we have experience in legal operations, legal disputes and solutions, we can create a legal portal. 

The person who will run it, more precisely the content, the filling, he will understand all the specifics of the legal industry and control the content. Ideally, he should write it. 

As a rule, a man has earned money, or he has some savings; he decided to invest them in the app. But he could not decide exactly what topics. And most people choose one. So they see OfferUp, they start saying that it’s slow, it’s inconvenient. Although in fact everything works perfectly, there is. 

The technical support that services this app is lightning quick to respond to all the users’ requests to improve the service and make it as fast, easy and accessible as possible. For some reason, they see flaws there and want to make it better. At the same time, they have no budget compared to OfferUp. There’s only enthusiasm, a desire to make money, and a desire to do something. But it all doesn’t work out that way.

Prospects for the Internet as an industry

There is no doubt that this is a promising and still developing industry that has all the prospects for growth, increasing turnover and attracting an even larger audience.

Individuals, businesses, regional companies and even chain stores benefit from selling their products through the internet, and it is convenient for users to buy them there by comparing their options.

On the other hand, the market already has an established leader, which attracts an audience primarily through advertising and brand recognition — and advertising on TV, and advertising in search engines, and media promotion.

In this situation, only those services can change the balance of power and become a real competitor to OfferUp that offer unique functionality, simple, understandable, accessible, and, more importantly, offer real benefits to users who can save money in a couple of minutes by using the smart search for the best price or the catalog of current deals. And such services, with the prospect of exponential development are also available today.