[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built a website to buy and sell used clot...
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Show HN: I built a website to buy and sell used clothes in
Indonesia
Author : frizkyK
Score : 70 points
Date : 2023-06-26 08:29 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (preloved.co.id)
(TXT) w3m dump (preloved.co.id)
| msephton wrote:
| This is awesome, well done!
|
| I use Depop and Vinted here in the UK. We also have one called
| Preloved, which could be problematic.
|
| I also know some vintage clothes sellers and a lot of stock comes
| from Indonesia. I'm always on the lookout for specific colours
| and styles of vintage items.
|
| Could you open up your site Internationally somehow? I can
| already search using English terms. Currency conversion would be
| relatively easy. The main thing would be shipping. It might only
| be sensible to collect packages in Indonesia and ship them in
| bulk to the buyer (so, like Buyee for things from Japan)
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thanks a bunch!
|
| I'm familiar with and love Depop! And I'm aware of Preloved
| too. Luckily, we're targeting different countries, so that
| potential issue you mentioned might not affect us.
|
| Love the idea of international shipping! The shipping API we
| partnered with supports it, so it's definitely on our radar for
| the future. However, our current Indonesian payment provider
| has limitations. Credit card payments are disabled due to low
| usage, and the fees are quite high. Maybe we can consider
| implementing a minimum spending requirement for international
| orders?
|
| On another note, I'll be kicking off the dev of the mobile app
| soon, so it might be a while before we can accept international
| orders.
| synthpop wrote:
| +1 for international orders, would love to get notified once
| that goes live. I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a
| shopping cart to check out with multiple items at once, even
| if they're all from the same seller. Suppose that's not a big
| deal yet until I'm actually able to get orders shipped to
| USA, though. Good looks so far, very promising stuff!
| frizkyK wrote:
| Absolutely! I'll prioritize working on the shopping cart
| soon.
|
| Thanks for your interest! To stay updated, the best way is
| to create an account. Once international shipments become
| available, I'll send an email to everyone since it's a
| major development.
| 4silvertooth wrote:
| What's the decimal format of Indonesia, I am seeing price like Rp
| 4.500.000, how much is that?
| daveguy wrote:
| Much of the world uses . and , in the opposite way we do in the
| US. So the dollar store here would have 1.00 prices here, but
| 1,00 elsewhere. Rp 4.500.000 is 4.5 million rupees, which is
| currently about $54,865.00.
| BOOSTERHIDROGEN wrote:
| 4.5 million rupiah is USD300
| frizkyK wrote:
| You're right about the commas, however, Indonesia uses the
| Rupiah, which sounds very similar to the Rupee used in India.
|
| Just to clarify, 4500000 rupiah is approximately equivalent
| to 300 USD.
| taw1516 wrote:
| wow this is great job! Congrats. Curious if you can share your
| tech stack for this? Did you use any headless commerce to speed
| up development?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I've used VueJS/NuxtJS/Tailwind for the frontend and a
| NodeJS/ExpressJS/Postgres backend. I've developed everything
| custom and didn't rely on a headless commerce solution.
| mrTee1977 wrote:
| Nice website. I am just curious to know what web stack (front and
| backend) you used to develop this website
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thanks! I've used VueJS/NuxtJS/Tailwind for the frontend and a
| NodeJS/ExpressJS/Postgres combo for the backend.
| gminic wrote:
| Great stack! Is it performing well? Are you using a VPS?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Yes! The platform is currently running on a smaller
| DigitalOcean droplet. I've already upgraded it once and
| handling some DevOps tasks along the way. The Hackernews
| traffic is giving the server a serious stress test. As it
| continues to grow, I'm considering switching to render.com,
| especially when more expertise is needed to handle the
| increased demand.
| st4lz wrote:
| There is a similar company in Europe: https://www.vinted.com/
|
| I think the popularity comes from the really good mobile
| experience, that would be a top priority from a service like
| this.
| frizkyK wrote:
| I'm also from Europe, and Vinted is awesome!
|
| Totally agree about the mobile aspect. Initially, I focused on
| making the website mobile-first, but we received numerous
| requests for a mobile app.
|
| Since I'm not well-versed in mobile development and we're self-
| funded with a tight budget, I opted to super optimize the
| website for mobile instead. I figured optimizing for free
| traffic through SEO would be a fantastic starting point.
| Surprisingly, I stumbled upon a ton of high-traffic keywords
| with little to no competition, which got me pretty excited.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I'm curious: Why Indonesia?
|
| Is there a specific reason for sourcing from this country over
| others?
| anotheraccount9 wrote:
| I'm guessing ease of shipping locally. I'm very curious too -
| there must be some practical or legal obstacle?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Yep, local shipping companies here are great! They offer
| pickups and deliveries for around a dollar, sometimes even
| less within the same city. When sellers make a sale on our
| platform, their item gets picked up from their address and
| delivered, usually on the same day, depending on the chosen
| delivery option.
| frizkyK wrote:
| The platform is exclusively for the Indonesian market, allowing
| transactions within Indonesia only.
|
| Though I'm born and raised in the Netherlands, my Indonesian
| heritage and language skills give me some insight into the
| market. After doing limited SEO and market research, I saw a
| great opportunity. So, I hacked together a platform and
| recently launched it. It's showing promise, but I'm still a bit
| skeptical.
| robobro wrote:
| Literally tons of used clothing gets sent here.
|
| Indonesia is not very green but technology like this can help
| address that
| frizkyK wrote:
| Exactly this
| edweis wrote:
| Great website! I really like the endeavor.
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thank you! :)
| carlossouza wrote:
| Nice, well done! Btw, there's a public company in Brazil that
| does exactly that: https://www.enjoei.com.br/
|
| Their GMV is ~US$ 200 million/year, and their revenues are ~US$
| 30 million/year.
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the website. It's truly inspiring, and I'm
| loving the clean and intuitive design!
| rizky05 wrote:
| Great Job! We need more Indonesian web here in HN. It load fast,
| and has many items posted. As a native Indonesian, I am curious
| are you based on jakarta?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Hey Rizky, thanks a lot. I agree, and yes, I'm in jaksel! :)
| [deleted]
| mandeepj wrote:
| Your site logo has a 8 bit flair. Are you a Minecraft or Mario
| fan?
|
| Are you comfortable in sharing your MRR? Even ballpark is ok.
|
| If traffic is slowing down, your site might be suffering from
| that post-runout exhaustion in that channel. I see you are
| already taking steps to mitigate that. Have you thought about
| partnering or hosting your inventory on a popular retailer's
| site? Good luck with your biz.
| frizkyK wrote:
| I used to be a gamer, but I have to give credit to my partner
| for creating the logo, haha
|
| Currently, the MRR is in the low three figures.
|
| No, I haven't explored that yet. It sounds intriguing, but
| managing and removing user-submitted content could be
| challenging since it's all user-driven.
|
| Thanks a lot!
| hzzhdev wrote:
| Awesome stuff! Any plans on getting investors on board or get
| funding for team expansion etc.?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thank you! While it's not in my immediate plans, I'm definitely
| intrigued and open to learning more about it, especially if the
| platform keeps growing.
| msephton wrote:
| The site seems to be having some loading issues right now. Lots
| of images failing to load.
| frizkyK wrote:
| Yes, sorry for that!
|
| Unexpectedly made it to the front page of Hackernews, and now
| my small server is seriously being put through its paces. It's
| clear I need to upgrade it ASAP.
| bevan wrote:
| Great site! Had a brief look and the clothes look great.
|
| Looks like CC isn't accepted, but bank transfer is. Curious why
| that is?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| In Indonesia, credit card usage is around 6%, one of the lowest
| in the region. We prioritize e-wallet payments, with banks as a
| secondary option. E-wallets have minimal fees compared to
| credit cards, which are relatively high with our current
| payment provider. For now, I've disabled credit card payments,
| but I might enable them in the future for orders above a
| certain amount.
| marapuru wrote:
| Looks good, how did you get your initial content on there? Did
| you reach out to some influencers or used your own local network?
|
| Are you also tapping into other Indonesian sites like tokopedia
| or the gojek/grab economy?
|
| Edit: It looks as if you are getting data from instagram. Is that
| correct?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| All the content is user-submitted, and we rely on Instagram and
| Twitter for traffic. Some influencers spread the word and it
| really got things rolling.
|
| We're actually competing with Tokopedia and Shopee, but they're
| not exclusively for second-hand clothing, although it's allowed
| there. We reached out to some sellers and found the turnover
| rate to be high, but it requires a lot of effort.
|
| For pickup and delivery, we collaborate with couriers like Grab
| and Gojek. Additionally, we've partnered with a company/API
| that handles pickups and deliveries when a seller makes a sale
| on our platform, taking advantage of affordable postage in
| Indonesia.
|
| Thrifting in Indonesia is booming, with Instagram as the main
| hub for buying and selling. Surprisingly, there's no (modern)
| dedicated platform like those in the West for the Indonesian
| market.
|
| So, I created one, and it gained rapid traction. Now, I'm
| figuring out how to take it to the next level.
| marapuru wrote:
| Thanks for your elaborate answer and good move to build this.
| I think there are a lot of opportunities there for new
| digital products like this that fit niches. I think making a
| basic app out of your website would be a great move.
| user_named wrote:
| Nice site. The hard part is growing the user base. Have you
| started and how is it going?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Thanks! Yup, almost hit 10k sign-ups!
|
| Influencers played a big part initially, giving us a boost by
| mentioning our platform organically.
|
| Growth has slowed down lately, but I'm going all-in on SEO.
| Found a bunch of untapped, high-traffic keywords with little
| competition. Fingers crossed for some serious results!
| user_named wrote:
| It's cool that you're doing SEO and SEM in Bahasa. On your
| own or with a team?
| frizkyK wrote:
| Doing it on my own. I'm running the platform, along with my
| girlfriend. She handles design and social media marketing,
| while I take care of development and SEO. Team effort! :)
| netsharc wrote:
| My pet peeve: people calling it "Bahasa". It's called
| Indonesian. Or "Bahasa Indonesia". Bahasa just means
| "language".
|
| Do you also ask people if they speak "langue" if you want
| to know if they speak French?
| _TwoFinger wrote:
| Indonesians themselves call it "bahasa". I guess the user
| you responded to is either Indonesian, or has been there.
| user_named wrote:
| Correct. I launched a product in Indonesia and our
| operations team there referred to the language as Bahasa.
| netsharc wrote:
| LOL, sibling comment voted to death, because I guess
| HNers know better than 2 native speakers (I am also one).
|
| If you're talking about Indonesians refererring to
| Indonesian in an English language context, yeah some of
| them do this too (like the original commenter I replied
| to above), I can't imagine a context where an Indonesian
| would ask someone else in Indonesian if they understood
| "bahasa", because the Indonesian being asked would wonder
| "Which language do you mean?".
|
| It would be like a Brit asking someone in London, "Do you
| speak language?".
|
| But just like there's Singlish in Singapore, there's
| probably Indonesian English. Another pet peeve of mine is
| Indonesians using "married" as a verb (in an Indonesian
| sentence) instead of an adjective.
| _TwoFinger wrote:
| > If you're talking about Indonesians refererring to
| Indonesian in an English language context, yeah
|
| yes, my only source for my previous comment was a
| passport control officer asking me "do you speak bahasa"
| at the airport :-)
| rizky05 wrote:
| [dead]
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