AllGoods is a marketplace that makes buying and selling online cheaper, faster and more fun for Kiwis. It’s free for casual sellers, easy for businesses to get set up, and fun for buyers to browse both new and used items. There are currently 9 member in the team. About 6 months ago, we met this awesome group of guys when they came in to talk about their upcoming pitch at Canterbury Angel’s Pitch and Pizza. Since then, hey’ve grown like Jack’s beanstalk and all sorts of interested people are sniffing around. Here’s their story so far…
Q: How did you all come together and what are your respective roles?
A: We are all friends from back in our University of Canterbury days. Levi Fawcett is our CEO and handles all the back end development of our platform. Nathan Taylor is our COO and also specialises in UX. Mark Song is our resident designer and also handles social media and digital marketing. Bradley Meredith is our CCO and Sales Director. Six additional team members have since joined us four founders.
Q: Where did the idea begin and how long from inception to now?
A: The original seeds for the idea were planted in the Levi’s head all the way back when he was a rebellious rascal in high school. He used to sell a lot of things to make his own pocket money and was getting fed up with the UX issues and high fees of a certain platform he was using. After a few iterations the team came together in 2017 and the fully fledged AllGoods idea began to come to life.
Q: What’s your point of difference from your competitors?
A: A few things that set us apart include no fees whatsoever for casual sellers, being NZ’s fastest and cheapest way to set up an online storefront, a mobile app that targets millennials, live chat between buyers and sellers, 100% Kiwi sellers, and geo-tagged listings based on your location which makes it super easy to browse for listings near you. Give AllGoods a go and you’ll soon find out why we are better 😉
Q: What financial challenges did you have to face and how did you manage?
A: Our biggest initial financial challenge came from the need to offer free trials and low fees to early adopters in order to gain traction. We solved this problem by redesigning our revenue model once our product was market validated.
Q: How does AllGoods make money?
A: We make money by charging our retail partners a monthly subscription fee and a commission on every successful sale.. The rates depend on what plan is selected.
Q: What are the numbers you constantly check and how often do you check them?
A: The numbers that we use for our KPIs are mobile app and website traffic, app downloads, user registrations, store registrations, new listings, brand new + second hand purchases as well as interactivity indicators like number of chats. We have weekly targets for all of these and check them daily.
Q: What is your biggest win so far?
A: Our biggest win is definitely our rapid growth. We launched our app 3 months ago and our website 9 months ago. Already we have almost 700 retail partners and 50,000 monthly users. The fact that much of this growth has been organic shows that the public are talking about us and that our product is something that Kiwis truly want!
Q: If you knew what you know now at the start, what would you do differently?
A: We would have got involved in the start-up community earlier on in order to have more people to bounce ideas off and access general support. Once you start looking it’s amazing how much is out there!
Q: Who or what is your inspiration?
A: Our initial inspiration came from using overseas marketplaces such as Taobao, Carousell, and AliExpress and realizing the New Zealand e-commerce was old fashioned, slow and more expensive by comparison. Ironically, a person we take great inspiration from is Sam Morgan. We find the sheer tenacity and DIY skills he displayed in creating an e-commerce platform from scratch to be a testament to good old Kiwi number 8 wire mentality and a true inspiration to all of us.