Kallow Launched to Revolutionize Technology Products Shopping – Unusual but Promising Idea

Today there is a new site named Kallow launched to demonstrate a totally different approach to technology shopping that is supposed to be absolutely user-friendly and open to anyone, no matter how low the level of technology proficiency is. The idea for the site was born when the guys from Kallow thought about how often they were asked for advice in purchasing a complicated technology product from their friends and family members and realized that buying tech items must be a nightmare for anyone without sufficient knowledge in the field.

After all, when you come to think of it, shopping for a product like an MP3 music player or a new laptop must be incredibly difficult if you only know that your player should be able to play music you already have on your computer and your new laptop should be red, easy to carry around and should also let you check emails. Unfortunately the existing brick and mortar stores as well as comparison shopping websites only make it even more difficult for a less technology-savvy user to buy what is needed in a satisfying and rewarding manner. In fact, the number of products in the same category you can buy - online or offline - often only makes it even more difficult to choose and buy just the right product for you.

And this is exactly the problem Kallow is intended to solve as the guys got an idea of building a very different shopping website intended to dramatically change the shopping experience for people who are often scared of buying technology products simply because they don’t know how to choose the right one. Of course the traditional option for such people is to ask more tech-savvy friends or family members to help with the purchase and Kallow is actually built on the same model. Basically Kallow guys do the research and offer only one product that they could recommend their own friends to buy - and in this manner Kallow serves as yet another friend you can ask for advice.

The selection of only one product in every category is based on a few rather simple criteria: ease of use, good performance and good value for the money. So when a visitor arrives to Kallow, he is greeted with a very simple question: “What are you looking for?” and a number of options in the categories like personal electronics, home entertainment, computing, personal audio, memory & storage. In each of the categories you will find the products a consumer may be looking for. For example, in the computing category the available options are laptop, mini-laptop, desktop, monitor, webcam, speakers, and a wireless router.

When a visitor clicks any product area, he or she will be provided with a recommendation - along with a photo, some thoughts from the Kallow guys, basic characteristics (written in a language quickly accessible to anyone), the price for the product and a link to buy this recommended product from Amazon (affiliate obviously as this is exactly the business model for Kallow to earn referral income).

I can definitely confirm that if there’s been anything “revolutionary” I reviewed recently, Kallow is definitely among such websites as I have never seen such a small shopping website with so little options available. But at the same time I tend to think that the web should be the place for everyone to experiment with ideas - no matter how crazy these ideas may seem to be at first. So Kallow could very well turn into a huge success eventually if they are really good with the choices they offer to consumers.

Of course there are a number of obvious disadvantages here. The first one is the number of options limited to one without any questions a user could answer to get a more personalized recommendation. Of course you can hardly recommend the very same laptop to a 15-year old gamer and to a housewife who decided she should start with a freelance journalism career - different goals often result in different recommendations. After all, even the least techy friend will know what he or she needs this product for and I will be able to give a better recommendation if I am more or less familiar with the needs of this particular person. It is understandable that personalized and custom-made recommendations will often be better than more generalist ones but it does not mean that Kallow idea of recommending technology products that will be good for most people should not exist.

Another disadvantage is that any geek will easily find tons of reasons to argue with the selections from the Kallow guys - simply because geeks tend to have their own opinions on just about everything in the world. And as a geek I would really be very much willing to argue with some things the guys have chosen. For example, in the laptops category they have selected the 13.3″ new Macbook and while there is no doubt it is a good choice, it is definitely not something I would have recommended a less tech-savvy person to buy and I certainly do not think converting anyone into Mac users is a good idea for such a site (and the guys behind Kallow are definitely huge Apple fans which is very much visible in their selections).

I have recently helped my cousin buy a laptop (after she used a Windows desktop for a few years) and I have selected an inexpensive yet robust Lenovo for her. And a Macbook was not even an option - because of its price and also because I don’t think for a less techy person it is a good idea to switch to a new operating system only because it is trendy. After all, I’d really not want to deal with constant phone calls from my cousin at a loss about where she is supposed to find a button to open that window she is accustomed to in Windows.

So all in all, I do have my doubts about the idea behind Kallow but I think it is not up to me to predict its future and we’ll have to wait for the people who have only basic understanding of technology to have their say - and if they like the shopping experience on Kallow, the product will have all the chances of succeeding. But it is no doubt good to see the problem recognized and addressed in some way: yes, technology products shopping must be comfortable instead of stressful and startups looking for new ways to make it this way deserve our best wishes at the very least.