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Selltag

Platform for people to sell and buy items

General Information

Category

e-Commerce

Country

Spain

Started

In 2014

Business Failure

Business Outcome

Shut Down

Closed

By 2015

Cause of Failure

Failure To Pivot

Founders & Employees

Number of Founders

Four

Name of Founders

Javier Escribano, Ruben Colomer, Juan Luis Hortelano, Walter Kobylanski

Number of Employees

Between 11 And 50

Funding

Number of Funding Rounds

Total Funding Amount

€325K

Number of Investors

Description

Selltag was a web-based buy & sell platform which later integrated their services with a mobile app and social network available in both iOS and Android app stores. It allowed registered users to create a network of their own products, lists of services, and even advertisements in order to buy or sell goods from other users in the network. Digitally created content was also considered as a trading good that could be easily exchanged or bought. Selltag also provided customers with externally sharable links to their products so that other non-registered users could see them and possibly become involved in the negotiation.

Cause of Failure

Selltag was unfortunate enough to experience too much of a disequilibrium between the attention and needs of sellers and the actual number of buyers to meet their requirements and provide operational sustainability.

Selltag failed to respond to the ever-growing needs of upgrading the contents of the app to make them more user-attractive. Their growth stagnated primarily as a result of insufficient funds for paid in-app marketing and unsatisfactory amount of advertisements per product to attract potential buyers to join the network. Even though they launched several features that were supposed to refresh the content - most notably a feature that allowed users (both buyers and sellers) to arrange and ship their goods to the destination point via Teletransporto- the move was not enough for them to expand their local marketplace.

Selltag CEO resigned in the middle of additional funding rounds as he believed the company would not be able to work competitively enough and that their business model would not be sustainable in the long term.

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