15 May,2015 08:35 AM IST | | Hassan M Kamal
Cooliyo is a new shopping app, that aims to bring the best of popular as well as niche e-commerce sites onto one common platform. A great idea, but it fails to address some basic trust issues
There's a golden rule among all start-ups - find a niche, and you can always build a business around it. But what if you don't? we guess, you try to make the niche, even more niche. And, that's what Cooliyo, a free app available for Android phones, is all about.
Building on the popularity of products on e-commerce portals, Cooliyo allows you to select and buy products based on their popularity across e-commerce portals such as Flipkart.com, Amazon.in, Snapdeal.com, Jabong.com as well as several niche websites (no details on the same).
The idea, as its maker, Shoptimize India Pvt Ltd, states is to "bring together the best from across hundreds of online stores with categories ranging from clothes, shoes, accessories to art and home décor... with Cooliyo, shopping is a breeze on the go with a live feed of awesome products catered to their taste".
True to that, Cooliyo offers a wide variety of products. The selection is impressive, and the app's user interface is easy to follow. However, majority of the products cater only to women, and we couldn't find any for men.
But that's not all. We also find the app hard to trust on several areas. First, the source of the product is not mentioned (if it's curated from Jabong, it should say so, right?).
Second there is very little or no information available about the product (except a few lines from the person suggesting the product); third, here too, you end up being a consumer of what someone else feels is right for you - your opinion doesn't matter at all (we suggest there should be an option where users also get to recommend products, otherwise Cooliyo is just a platform to push products). Lastly, though Cooliyo promises cool discounts on products, there's no way to check whether it's really so or not.
But what we found most discouraging, was once you place an order, you will have to wait for a callback from Cooliyo stylist. It's good idea for those who need assistance, but what if you don't? There's no way to bypass that, and that's very irritating. Sorry mate, but it's not so cool!
Available on Play.google.com
Price Free
