Marktkraam
About this project
When we started out at the beginning of 2009, we had two problems. First of all, nobody knew us. Second, mobile was still considered "wishful thinking" by many. So we had to create an outstanding solution that would be able to solve both problems. Situated close to Amsterdam, we set out to create an app for one of the biggest websites in the Netherlands. Quickly our choice fell on Ebay's Marktplaats.nl, a popular classified ads website which generates 1 billion pageviews each month.
The first version of Marktkraam was a big hit. At first the app was available for € 1.59, hit 2nd place overall in Paid Apps and almost 3500 users downloaded the app. But after the first 4 weeks, downloads went down. We realized that to reach a large volume we had to provide the app for free. As soon as the app was available for free, we hit 3rd place overall in Free Apps and had 25000 downloads in 2 weeks. From that moment we kept on growing.
After a while we also had Ebay's attention, but when we spoke with them, they told us mobile was "of no importance". So we continued with the independent development.
As anyone starting out in a new field, we ran into several problems. The app was getting bigger and bigger with features as well as users and became unstable to a certain point where
we decided to completely recode the whole iPhone project and start the development of a native Android version as well. Everything was build from the ground up with a pretty neat backend including an OCR and native application frameworks which some companies would proudly call "enterprise application development".
Since then, the project has grown to be one of the most used apps in the Netherlands and Belgium with over 14 million screen impressions every month across iOS and Android devices. Currently it enables mobile users to quickly browse through all the ads. A wide range of search options can be used including categories, price range, gps location, distance and more. It features a fullscreen photobrowser, possibilities to make direct phone-contact with the advertiser by one click of a button or plan the route in Google Maps. Of course all data is handled in a smart mobile-optimized way, which reduces load times and makes it possible, for instance, to view favorite ads offline.
The project has been a great success in every way and we will continue the development of additional features and platforms over the coming years.
The goals
- Provide the best possible mobile solution to use Ebay's Marktplaats.nl
- Create as much brand awareness as possible for mediaBunker
- Create the possibility to use affordable display advertising with a large volume of mobile users
The results
- Over 350,000 downloads
- Over 18 million monthly screen impressions
- Contributed to winning the Android App Challenge 2010
- Generates a lot of free publicity
- Gives us a comptetive advantage with our own built-in display advertising solution
