SimplyListed Wants to Get the World Buying and Selling via Mobile [EXC

**Waqas** · October 21, 2011

Could selling the mouse or iPhone you no longer need be as simple as snapping a photo with your mobile phone? Yes, says SimplyListed, makers of an iPhone application targeted at the population of the world too intimated by Craigslist or eBay to sell their wares on the web.

“If you can use an app like Instagram,” says SimplyListed CEO Jon Grall, in an exclusive interview with Mashable, “you can use SimplyListed to sell your stuff.”

SimplyListed’s iPhone application is centered on the camera. If you have something to sell, fire up the application, take as many as four photos from different angles, add an optional description and hit the list button.

SimplyListed does the rest — including automatically determining what it is you’re selling, how much it’s worth and making it available to buyers in a digital bazaar.

“The ease of posting an item is something that people haven’t seen before,” Grall explains of SimplyListed’s value. The startup uses a somewhat mysterious methodology — Grall was reluctant to disclose details — to scour the web for items resembling the one you’re trying to sell, and then use that data to determine a price range for your item.

Each for-sale item goes through an approval process, but once it passes inspection, the seller can promote her own listing — soon sellers will have landing pages they can socially promote — or wait to be included in one of SimplyListed’s weekly themed sales.

The application was also designed to make communication between potential buyers and sellers a breeze. SimplyListed gives each seller an anonymized email address and phone number, but it routes all messages through the app, with push notifications, to avoid clogging up the seller’s actual inbox.

The two-person Y Combinator startup first quietly released its iPhone app on the App Store in March, but only completed its initial themed sale two weeks ago. Now, it’s looking to make a bigger splash and convert regular Joes and Janes into iPhone buyers and sellers, just as Instagram has helped the average iPhone users indulge in their photographic aspirations.

SimplyListed has its quirks. iPhone users can only access items for sale during one of the startup’s weekly bazaars, for the time being. The sale structure is a (temporary) contrived attempt to focus activity while SimplyListed builds its user base, Grall explains.

But SimplyListed’s ambition to make selling stuff an approachable concept for the masses is quite laudable, especially considering that this reporter has an iPhone 4 already collecting dust in her apartment but would likely never turn to Craigslist or eBay to sell it.

“People have stuff and they will give it away or sell it given the chance,” Grall says, “but all the tools to do that are not there yet. We want to get the whole world buying and selling.”

More About: SimplyListed, Startups, y combinator

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