(12) Carousell sharing

I'm a frequent user of Carousell so it's cool to be in a talk with the founders about the company.

Monetization was one of the key issues I have with this app. They currently do not have any way of getting revenue, and their "asset" is probably the massive user base. But apparently, they have monetization plans! Some of their plans as below + my own views:

(1) Taking a cut from payments on Carousell

Pros: For convenience sake, people WOULD pay, as long as they do not overcharge. For instance, 1% of $20 is only $0.20. And given the amount of transactions, I think it's a pretty solid source of revenue.

Cons: Hmm, to move from free service to freemium is always risky. Furthermore, there's actually a lot of young users (yes, xiao mei mei especially) on Carousell, so these small little charges may turn them off and still opt for cash payments. However, I don't think this is a big issue because given that all the xmm and xdd (xiao mei mei & xiao di di) today owns a smartphone and even personal laptop, $0.20 to them should be negligible.

(2) Charging for listing luxury expensive items like cars and houses.

Pros: Lucas suggested $10 - $20 for such listings. This sum is really small compared to the sale price of the cars/houses, so people will be deterred to pay VS paying an agent to sell for you.

Cons: Ehhh.... Selling huge luxury items like cars and properties on Carousell seems unsafe and weird. And it may run into legal issues because of the transfer in ownership. I feel that keeping it to normal, smaller items is better. I definitely wouldn't like Carousell to be like Taobao, selling all kinds of things including BAD DEBT. omg.

Definition of bad debt: A debt that is not collectible and therefore worthless to the creditor.

It's quite amazing for Carousell to reach such scale and success, given that everything was done over a summer holiday. They did intensive marketing, really really intensive marketing. They strategically used their identities as students to market to students via school camps, and have a lot of support from NUS Enteprise as well. And honestly, I even saw their sticker in the toilet cubicle haha.. Don't think this is the same in Male's toilets? Since 70% of Carousell users are Female. heh. I attribute part of their success to their aggressive marketing - they made it so pervasive such that you can't miss it. Abit spammish and can irritate, but well, it worked :)

Ciao

Mei Lan