Tradem

Children's marketplace for learning money management skills

Industry:
Education
Location:
United Kingdom
Children's marketplace for learning money management skills
About the client

Our client Marcelo came up with an idea for Tradem (previously QniQr) when he realized there weren’t any money apps aimed at kids and teenagers. He thought it'd be interesting to build a product that would let children buy, sell, and swap things and thus improve their money management skills. He ran a few interviews with parents and children to test if the product was going to be successful. Once the concept was proven, he started working on Tradem, a marketplace where young users would sell anything from books to toys to clothing and accessories.

Solution

Together with our client, we created a comprehensive landing page where parents and educational organizations can learn all about the Tradem platform.

Central to Tradem is its marketplace tailored specifically for children and teens, fostering a safe and engaging environment where young users can interact and explore various offerings. Notably, the platform restricts adult access to the marketplace, ensuring a secure space for its youthful users. Additionally, a dedicated adults/parents dashboard empowers parents to create accounts for their children and oversee their activities, providing a level of oversight and control when necessary. This collaborative effort resulted in a user-friendly interface that effectively communicates Tradem's value proposition while prioritizing safety and parental involvement.

In addition to the features tailored for parents and individual users, our collaborative efforts extended to providing schools with a streamlined onboarding process, allowing them to set up an account and create subaccounts within the Tradem platform. This functionality proves invaluable for classroom sessions and extracurricular clubs, offering a seamless and organized platform for students to engage with. Schools can utilize the platform for various activities such as purchasing, selling, and swapping resources, fostering financial literacy and eCommerce lessons, generating wishlists, fundraising initiatives, and facilitating PTA endeavors. Tradem also serves as an effective tool for educators to impart crucial lessons about conscious consumerism and the principles of the circular economy, aligning with modern educational objectives aimed at nurturing socially responsible and environmentally conscious citizens. By integrating these multifaceted functionalities, Tradem emerges as a comprehensive educational platform poised to empower both individual users and educational institutions.

Expertise brought to Tradem

Project management
Agile product ownership
Frontend development
Backend development
Business analysis
DevOps
Quality assurance

User roles

Parents
Parents can create profiles for their children, manage their children’s deals, and top up their e-wallets.
Kids
Kids can create their own shops and buy, sell, and exchange items.
Schools
Schools can set up an account, open multiple sub-accounts, and manage kids’ deals.

Implemented features

Children’s profiles
Parents and guardians can create and set up children’s accounts, activate e-wallets, and set age-appropriate controls.
Moderation of deals
A parent or guardian reviews a child’s deals to purchase, sell, or exchange items. Once an adult approves or doesn’t approve a deal, the child is notified about the decision.
Managing e-wallets
Only adults can top up their children’s e-wallets. Additionally, adults can set spending limits.
Creating stores
Young users can create and personalize their stores. They can design their shop’s virtual storefront by choosing colors, background patterns, and fonts.
Selling goods
To sell an item, children need to include photos of it, create a good description, and set a price. After that, children should wait for approval from an adult.
Purchasing goods
Children can buy goods at the asking price or offer other goods in exchange, possibly alongside some additional cash.
School account
Schools can easily set up an account and open as many sub-accounts as needed. Each subaccount has its own login and shop so it can be used collaboratively during classroom sessions.
Third-party integrations
  • Mangopay. Even though Tradem is designed for kids, all items on the platform can be purchased for real money. To make this possible, we integrated Mangopay, a UK payment solution aimed at marketplaces, since Tradem targets UK users. Mangopay was the right solution for Tradem since it features e-wallets. Tradem gives every child their own e-wallet and parents can add funds to these wallets. With Mangopay, parents can create as many digital wallets as necessary and split payments between them.

  • Image moderation. Since Tradem is a children’s platform, we paid close attention to content and image moderation. We picked Besedo for this. It’s a content moderation service powered by artificial intelligence filters and highly trained professionals. We set up automated moderation so images are reviewed prior to publication. No images are posted until they’re moderated.

  • Text messages with Twilio. We used Twilio to notify parents about their kids’ activity. We also used it for sending verification codes during login.

  • Zendesk support. On Tradem, children can not only trade and buy but also bargain, which means they can leave comments. To moderate comments and item descriptions, we used Zendesk Support. We also integrated Zendesk widgets to provide feedback forms where users can easily report inappropriate content or comments. This feedback is seen in the Zendesk admin panel and is sent directly to the administrator’s inbox so the admin can quickly respond.

  • Retrieving addresses with getAddress. Parents can set the postal address associated with an account, which is required for billing purposes. An address is also necessary for kids to be able to finish deals (by meeting in person or making a delivery). To make filling in the address form more convenient, we used getAddress. This service helps users easily find UK postal addresses by postcode.