Scoodi – Social Community Trading

Craigslist has become wildly popular for being completely free, using a simple design, and being easy to use. Users all around the United States and also in other countries have helped to build a community where goods and services can be bought or sold, jobs can be listed and discovered, and where people can find out who and what is in their local area.

Now, Scoodi, an Australian startup, takes the free marketplace concept to new heights with its social trading platform, through the use of a stylish web 2.0 design and a focus on the importance of re-using and recycling over our current “throw-away culture.”

The intention of Scoodi is to encourage communities to start interacting and circulating unused items around locally. When listing an item, users have the option of selling if for a specified price or giving it away for free. No time limits are enforced and listings remain posted on the site until sold or given away.

“Scoodi can connect you to and help you support your existing local communities. Work together with your neighbours, your local school, sporting club, social club, church or even local producers and service providers. We actively encourage local groups to get together and use the site to support each other. The more items there are in your area, the more benefit we can all get from using the site.”

The layout is simple and the site keeps everything well-organized on the screen, to make the process of finding items or posting items as easy as possible. Scoodi is quick to point out, however, that retail and wholesales goods not permitted for sale on Scoodi, because the “free Scoodi listings are not intended to create e-shops for retailers or wholesalers,” which makes sense. Other than that, the rules of this marketplace are much more relaxed than those of Craigslist.

Users have the option of choosing tags to search through, browsing all items (or all free items), as well as searching. Search results seem to have take a cue from those of eBay, with each returned result displayed complete with thumbnail image, seller name, distance, price and time listed. When setting the local area to browse, users can limit searches to only include those items listed within 2km, 5km, 10km, 20km, 50km or 100km of their city or town. Searches can also be further refined by tag, price range, or number of days since listed.

Currently, there seems to be little available in communities outside of Australia, but given time, Scoodi could become as widespread as Craigslist. The environmental focus of Scoodi is welcomed and needed in a time where there is major concern about the future of our planet. It is completely free for anyone, and it even has the potential to save people money just as Craigslist now does for so many people.