I’m in the process of letting go/disposing of/getting rid of/selling stuff that I no longer need around the house. In line with this activity, I signed up for two online shops, namely: OLX and Tackthis. Both offer free registration so I went on to set up my online shops.
Just a disclaimer, this blog post does not intend to rigorously compare the two services – I would simply like to document my experience as a user/seller – specifically the noticeable stuff whether positive or negative. Also, this could be an ongoing piece of “review” as I go along with this new adventure of garage selling on the internet.
Page Speed
The processes I went through were registration, profile update, and product update. I used a desktop computer as I’ve signed up and set up the shops. One very frustrating thing about Tackthis is that it feels like I’m hooked up via 56k dial-up internet – it’s very slow. OLX, on the other hand hang up on me yesterday when I tried to register (page returned blank no matter how many times I’ve reloaded) – but I tried it again today successfully – no problems with waiting for pages to load and tasks to complete.
No matter how short and user-friendly a form is – if the site makes a user ponder about the meaning of life – it’s pain.
Pretty URL
OLX gave me: http://members.olx.ph/GarageSaleWow
Tackthis gave me: http://tackthis.com.ph//shop/25209
‘Nuff said.
HTTP Secure
Upon updating some of my profile info and password, I found out that OLX uses HTTPS while Tackthis does not use HTTPS. This is a big deal because security is important.
Gravatar Integration
Gravatar saves me from scrounging for a nice profile photo because it’s automatically coupled with the email address that I used to register. Without it, it took me a while to download my profile photo (from Gravatar) and upload it to OLX. Tackthis’s Gravatar integration is a downside for some users who want to upload from their computers – because Gravatar is the only option for Tackthis.
Photo Editor
One of the photos I uploaded – for some weird reason – has the wrong orientation (although it’s correct when I preview it locally). In Tackthis, there is an integrated photo editor that enabled me to correct the orientation of the photo (among its Photoshop-like features). The same thing happened when I uploaded the photo to OLX – but since it does not have an editor, I deleted the photo, opened Photoshop to correct it and uploaded it again.
Summary
None of the negative points I wrote above deterred me from signing up and setting up the shops – simply because I wanted to find out how effective it is to sell something online (using only a free account). I might find out eventually that I need to “go pro” or “be a gold member” to have advantage in selling stuff but that’s another story.
Here’s a table that I will update as I go along with the process:
| Criteria | OLX | Tackthis |
|---|---|---|
| Page Speed | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pretty URL | ✓ | ✗ |
| HTTP Secure | ✓ | ✗ |
| Gravatar Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Photo Editor | ✗ | ✓ |
Again, a discalimer: the results in this table varies from every user because each one has his/her own experience and one aspect that is important for me might not be important for you.
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