A couple of days ago at the Swalif Think Day event in Dubai (UAE), a new interesting online service was launched, which is eMapia; brought to us by the same people behind Darrb, the community powered shipping and delivery service, previously reviewed here; eMapia aims to be a usable location based marketplace.
eMapia hopes to make shopping online an easier experience, integrating Google Maps technology to enable sellers (businesses or individuals) to add their items and link them to specific locations on the map, where they are available for sale (shop or person’s home).
It’s very much like the classifieds systems we’ve gotten used to where people post items they have for sale and set their own prices, and others get to contact them if they’re interesting in buying them from them. But eMapia tries another take at it through a new interface concept, focusing more on the location side of things, letting users zoom into specific areas to search for products in those areas or checking out all products being sold in their area.
It’s pretty obvious that the team behind eMapia and Darrb will slowly start building bridges between the two services as it’s clear that they’re a great match; after all, if someone finds something they’re interested in, and they want to buy it, they’ll certainly also want it delivered to them as cheaply as possible too, if the seller is not near enough for them.
The interface is pretty simple and straightforward to use; there’s a big map that users can zoom to different locations with, in search of items available for sale in those areas; and there’s a list of available products on the left that gets refreshed automatically as locations change or as the user zooms in further.
Users can click through from the map or the list of products to view more details about the item and the seller. Seller and buyer rating functionalities haven’t been integrated yet, but they’re obviously really important features that should be integrated soon, just like they are in Darrb.
eMapia offers users the ability to add up to 5 items for free. To be able to add more items, users will have to upgrade to a premium member account, which they will be announcing soon.
# eMapia
