For long I was thinking about writing about Quikr but then was thinking what to write as this is simply a classifieds(buy/sell items) website. However, since the time I have also started using OLX I am finding Quikr to be quite more problematic.
Here are some of the issues I face with it:
UI(User Interface) is not intriguing. It is more clumsy and the entire page is filled with lot of things. To me, the website’s home-page needs to be neat and tidy.
Post an Ad: This is the primary feature of the website and it should be in a nice bold and attractive manner, placed at a position which can easily attract users. Because this is the prime reason people come here for.
Search: This is the next item people would come here for. Looking for something which is selling for cheap or meeting their requirements. So this should also be placed strategically.
Register: This is an important feature as the website would expect users to register before they can do any activity on the site.
So, the website should have the above 3 features in a manner that would easily catch user’s eyes and not something that they have to spend more than few seconds to locate.(as a human tendency, now that there are thousand of websITES_Company providing similar or better information, the human mind does not wish to spend more than few seconds on any website looking for what they desire.)
Everything else is secondary and can come in any corner of the website. I am a regular user of Quikr and they have to consider these points as it is putting off the customers.
Posting an Ad is a cumbersome process. Compared to OLX, I hate to post an ad here. The placement of input area or the form is designed shabbily, why can’t they give us a simple, compact form? As you type out details in each field, suddenly there is a field asking to upload a photo (3rd in the sequence). All text fields should be in order and photo should either come at the top or at the bottom.
Also, they keep chasing you for uploading a photo. As a user I understand it’s importance but also as a person, I know sometimes that I can still sell an item without it’s photo.
Description vanishes: Recently, after I select City and then Locality, I have seen that the Ad description that was added gets erased - very annoying! I think after you select the city, the form gets re-posted and may be that takes away this data - however it happens only with Description. It is very irritating to write all those details again and in same way that you wrote once.
Seller Type: Even after I select "Individual" here, when my ad is posted it shows as "Dealer" - not sure why?
Posting: The’Post’ button is right at the bottom of the page. They have now introduced a lot of’Paid features’ like’Premium’, ’Premium Plus’. Looks like Quikr is into money making now.
After I say post(free one), on the next page it asks for aishwaryasingh23ment options. This is so confusing, for a moment I thought I chose a paid service on the first page and clicked’Back’ on the browser to correct it, with this all the filled details were wiped off. Very very frustrating! If I am trying to sell an item of worth some hundred bucks, I cannot afford to go through so much of pain. I did the whole thing again and on the next page, at the bottom saw a small link "Skip" (I do not understand this technique by Quikr). After I clicked’Skip’, the ad was posted.
SMS/Calls: Quikr is quick in sending SMS though, sometimes their message comes as broken multiple messages. They even called me to check, if I have got enough responses and if not, I should be adding some photos(again!).
Auto Subscribe There is another irritating feature they have is - auto subscribe, which if you forget to un-check, you may end up getting multiple unwanted requests and phone calls.
Ad MAnasultangement There are 3 categories here: Active Ads mAnasultangement, Expired Ads mAnasultangement and Deleted Ads mAnasultangement. Another feature I do not understand is - when I go here and say’Delete’, I get a message saying’Ad will be deleted shortly’ and on click of’Back’ it takes me back to the list of Ads, where I still see the Ad. This is again very confusing, if I am trying to work on deleting multiple Ads, every time I come back to the page, I do not understand, which Ad I deleted previously. Why don’t Quikr delete Ads immediately like in OLX or at least mark it in a different color or something to indicate these are marked for deletion?
I think OLX also re-categories the Ad for you, if they feel it’s not a best-fit category.
Offers: Once I remember, there was an offer when they were giving away some coupons for downloading Quikr App and posting add through it - I did and I got nothing. I wrote to their customer care (support@quikr.com) and received no response!
Weak response: I am very happy with the response from OLX - I hardly get response from Quikr. Whenever I have to sell anything, I do it on both the sITES_Company and whenever I get a buyer, they always mention that they got the reference from OLX.
One more thing, there were some point system they had in place some time back, where they used to give points for each activity and which could be re-deemed. For quite some time, they had a redemption offer to use them to make the Ad’premium (matlab ghar ka paisa ghar me hi rahe") and there was another one - buy goodies like Quikr key chain, caps etc, which the site always mentioned as’coming soon’ and now it has totally disappeared from their website, without giving users any idea about what happened to that scheme - cheating?
I am finding it’s worthless now to post ads on Quikr, first with so many problems that I mentioned above and even after taking that much pain, the responses are weaker. I seriously am not sure, how they are running the business.