The Quickable Marketplace Helps Thousands of Families Defray Back-to-School Costs, Empowers the Purchase and Sale of Over $4.5 Million in Goods in 30 days

BOSTON, Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Going back to school is a classic American end-of-summer tradition. For American families, however, the cost of sending their kids back to school has never been so expensive. Ask three ordinary, hard-working Americans: Amber and Johnny of Middletown, Ohio; Nichole B. of Massachusetts; and Jenny G. of Springfield, Illinois.

• Amber and Johnny have two boys, ages seven (2nd grade) and eight (3rd grade). Times have never been tighter. Johnny is a mechanic. Amber provides home-based health care to the elderly. After having had her benefits stripped, she now nets $200 weekly after taxes. Amber found the Quickable Marketplace while searching for a free smartphone app that she could use to make extra cash. Within a week, she had netted nearly twice her weekly salary selling unused goods around the house.
• Nichole B. is the owner of Kluttered Klosets, a registered trading assistant for eBay. She helps moms daily who feel financial strain. When Nichole returned from a recent vacation, she saw just how dire the back-to-school situation is. "There was a caravan of bins that mothers whom I know well had left in my store. Parents are starting to really unlock cash from old items like clothes that are no longer needed." Nichole uses the Quickable Marketplace to sell her customers' goods on eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook, as well as the Marketplace itself.
• Jenny has a 10-year old entering 5th grade. Her boyfriend has twin 5-year-olds entering kindergarten. She is a stay-at-home mom. Back-to-school is not an easy time for this struggling family. "I have to buy clothes for growing kids - then pay the rent, then the car. Every week I have bills that have to be paid right away." Jenny too found the Quickable Marketplace and wasted no time listing items across platforms. She sold 11 household goods within one hour. "I love it," she says. "It's fast and easy—much faster than posting through eBay—and it brings us money we need."

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The Real Costs of Sending Kids Back To School

The statistics don't lie about back-to-school costs:

• The National Retail Foundation predicts that the average parent (or married couple) will spend at least $688 per child in back-to-school expenses, a 10% increase from the previous year.
• These figures can be viewed more granularly. According to the 2012 Huntington Backpack Index issued by Huntington Bank, a $57 billion regional bank headquartered in Columbus, parents with students in the following grades can expect to pay these sums:
  • Elementary School – $530 to $548 (a 3.4% rise over 2011);
  • Middle School – $684 to $724 (a 5.8% rise); and
  • High School – $1,093 to $1,117 (a 2.2% rise).

The increases stem primarily from school-related costs and fees. These include renting musical instruments, pay-to-play fees for school sports; and fees for other extracurricular activities such as drama. Above all, school administrators who find themselves short on funds and unable to count on federal stimulus shift traditional school costs to parents.

According to The New York Times (Aug. 27, 2012), the sluggish economy has resulted in a surprisingly slow start to the back-to-school spending season. "If people do not go to stores once schools start, it will be bad news for an economy heavily dependent on consumer spending to stay afloat." This emphasizes even further the need for families to defray back-to-school costs. 

The Quickable Marketplace Defrays Back-to-School Costs for Thousands

Many families are turning to technology to help with their economic woes. In particular, a smartphone-based app called Quickable Marketplace is a new, first-of-its kind smartphone-based marketplace that leverages location-based services and buyer-seller instant messaging in order to defray the ever-mounting costs of sending children back to school. 

Users who download this free Android app—the company will release iPhone version later this year—can photograph items they wish to sell, and with automated product descriptions in under a minute list the item through the Quickable Marketplace, which populates first-generation selling platforms such as eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook, as well as the centralized Quickable Marketplace itself.

Quickable Marketplace Reaches Impressive Milestones

Since its mid-July 2012 launch, Quickable Marketplace has reached impressive milestones:

• In the thirty days following launch Quickable Marketplace has become a top 15 shopping app in Google Play and the most highly ranked marketplace for physical goods after eBay.
• Quickable Marketplace is downloaded by over 5,000 new Android users daily who make money selling unused goods.
• Over 100,000 Android users have downloaded Quickable Marketplace.
• Quickable Marketplace has empowered the purchase and sale of over $4.5 million in goods in the 30 days since launch.

Quickable Marketplace Makes Going Back To School Affordable Again

Sending one's children back to school should never be an economic strain. However, the worst economy in history has eroded families' purchasing power like never before. Families now often struggle on more fronts than they can handle.

Technology is not a panacea for a faltering economy. But for those families turning to Quickable Marketplace as a means of defraying costs, the benefits are measurable and their kids are returning to school precisely as they should.

About Quickable

Quickable (http://www.quickable.com) empowers instant mobile commerce and eliminates the hassle of selling and buying across multiple platforms from a smartphone. By downloading Quickable Marketplace, sellers can list their items straight to eBay, Craigslist, Facebook and the new Quickable Marketplace with a one-touch selling experience. In turn, mobile shoppers can find and purchase precisely what they're looking for – for sale either locally or across the country. Quickable is headquartered in Boston, MA.

SOURCE Quickable