Are classifieds apps a good investment?
Twenty years ago the Internet changed the advertising world forever. Today online advertising is at its peak thanks to display networks and social media. It delivers highly targeted and personalized content to the consumers and is accessible and affordable for businesses.
Classified ads on the other hand sat quietly in the corner for most of that time. It’s only in the recent years that there’s been some significant movement. Yes, Craiglist has been around since 1995 yet it started rapidly growing its audience more than ten years later. Naturally that brought competition such as OLX that launched in 2006 and is now operating in more than 70 countries.
Giants such as Facebook also came to realize the potential of online classifieds. Facebook has had its own marketplace since 2009 yet they decided to relaunch it in late 2016. They also promote quick access to it in their mobile app.
No wonder they did this. Just a year earlier, OLX’s former CEO Alec Oxenford raised the impressive 100$ million of venture capital right in the first round for his classifieds ads app Letgo. According to Apptopia in August 2016 the app had more than 30 million downloads and about 17.4 million people used it monthly.
How big is the online classifieds market
The growth of e-commerce, the ever increasing number of smart phone users and the growing internet usage in under-developed countries are the key factors that drive the classifieds industry forward.
A survey conducted by Multa Group among lead figures in the classifieds business, suggests that the general attitude towards the development of the industry is positive. More than 80% of the participants (the majority being CEOs and founders of online classifieds companies) feel optimistic about what the next few years hold for their companies.
Furthermore, according to Statista’s forecast the revenue in the online classifieds industry is aboutUS$19,974m in 2018 and its predicted growth rate is expected to be 8.2% in the next 4 years.
The rise of classifieds apps
Apps such as Letgo are changing the whole classifieds industry. As a result print classifieds now feel the urge to evolve and dive into the digital world. With the mobile app industry’s growth they see more value in doing so with an app rather than a website.
There are certain paralells with the boom of the dating industry. Tinder is practically a classified app itself. Its success lies in the fact that it identified a key factor crucial for online daters — immediacy. People want to evaluate options fast and don’t want to waste more time than necessary. That is especially true for Millennials. They are always online, have a short attention span and want things to happen this instant. It’s safe to say that ease and convenience is what they look for in the digital world. This goes for online buyers too.
Reality is that the majority of users access classifieds web sites from their phone rather than from desktop. Small local businesses have realized that and have made their web sites mobile friendly, as this is the first logical step that does not require much investment.
Trouble is that websites can’t offer the same user experience on mobile as apps can. Apps can show immediate custom offers tailored to the consumers’ needs and delivered at the best possible time, right in front of the viewers’ eyes. Native applications are the best choice in terms of quality when it comes to user experience.
They are specifically developed for the phone’s operational system so they have access to all the functions like camera, calendar, location, etc. This is important as the more data they collect, the more relevant ads they show to the user. However, native apps are usually expensive since they have to be created for each operating system exclusively. I have reviewed in details the difference between native, hybrid and web apps previously, so if you want to learn more click here.
Many ways to go and you must!
Ready-made templates — low quality, fast, no way to extend
Templates are the quick cheat of the industry. They give you option to buy at “reasonable price” a ready-made app that you eventually can customize a bit and launch as your own. It usually comes also with some standardized backend to help kickstart your project. As the intro suggests, this is inexpensive way to show an MVP but not a base for a proper business that grows and develops. You cannot do changes easily and when you hire developers in time to look into options to assist you, they will not be thrilled by the messy code behind (yes, you get what you pay for). Result is that such apps are tough to extend or modify in any way. If they start attracting a lot of users they will require expensive maintenance.
In a nutshell ready-made templates are indeed a cheap and fast solution yet they have multiple downsides. They are unappealing to users due to low quality (or too standardized look/feel). In the long run they have high maintenance cost and if you go for that solution you risk getting obsolete product from the start.
Web or hybrid — cheaper, faster, not nice in the long run
Those are two other popular options to build an MVP due to their affordability. Web apps are basically websites that fit the screen of you mobile phone. In other words — they are not apps. You can have them built easily by web developers and have an MVP up and running fast. Hybrid apps are more advanced; they have access to some of the phone’s native features like calendar and camera.
Outside the MVP area, web and hybrid simply can’t deliver the same user experience that native apps provide.
Go native with custom development — high quality, slow, expensive
If you really want to have a polished, quality app you can always hire native developers to get the job done for you. Your app will be custom made by professionals and you’ll receive a great product at the end. Unfortunately, with custom coding from scratch the app-creation process will take longer. Also, you would need a developer with skills for each platform you target and usually you need iOS and Android. Then you also need someone to handle the backend for you and all connections. You would also need someone to handle your server setup and scaling. So you easily look into a team of 3 to 5 skilled people. Putting them on salary is a luxury in most markets nowadays. Thus, for many custom is synonym to expensive.
Go native with a platform — high quality, fast, affordable
Platforms such as Appzio make the development of native apps radically faster by reducing the code base and solving the issues with server setup and extendability. Due to the single-technology you would not necessarily need more than one person on your team. In the end, apps built in this way have native apps quality and are delivered as fast as if they were a mere web app. To give you an example, one of the latest projects based on Appzio is a classifieds app in its essence — EMOH ( find it on Google Play or Apple App Store).
EMOH is an app for Landlords, Tenants and Agents. It allows users to get matched with available properties based on their preferred set of requirements. Some would say it resembles a matchmaking tool and will be right. Then when one looks in the details, it has all the must-have features for a classifieds app:
- Multi-role application where different roles have different privileges
- Google Maps integration
- Advanced filters for properties search
- Social media integrations
- User profiles
- Moosend integration for e-mail marketing
Do you have an idea for a classifieds app OR do you plan to take your classifieds website to the next level? Shoot us and e-mail at info@appzio.com and get an estimation for your project free of charge.
