The world wide web can be a dangerous place for me at times, especially when I see a cool new product. I have a hard time when I come across a cool iPhone case, or some other cool gadget that I just “need” to have. I know I am somewhat obsessed with technology, but I always feel like I have to have the latest and greatest. Granted, I don’t go too overboard and I make sure to stay within my limit and there are times when I have to save the item that I want for later and actually save up for it.
There are a variety of ways that I have tried to save things that I find on the internet that I want to buy later. I have bookmarked websites and I have also tried to use sites like Pinterest and Clipboard as well. Needless to say, for whatever reason none of the things that I have tried seemed to work well. So, a little while back I found out about Wanelo, which is a place where you can store things that you want to buy. But it is more than just that, it is kind of like Pinterest, but more of a niche service. Let me show you what I am talking about.
What Is Wanelo?
If you were to go straight to the Wanelo site, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell what it exactly does until you actually play around with it for a little while. The basics of it is that it’s a place to save things that you want to purchase at some point, either by yourself or if you want someone else to get it for you as a gift. You save things by using the bookmarklet that they have and when you are browsing the internet and come across something you want to buy, you can send it to Wanelo. You can save an item to a specific group that you create, make a comment, as well as give it a hashtag.
Adding a product to Wanelo
Interact with Others
What makes Wanelo useful is the interaction features that you can use while you are on the site. For one, you can search the site to see what other people are adding and get even more ideas of things that you want to purchase. If you find something that you like, you can then save it to your board on Wanelo. You also have the option to buy the item by clicking on the “buy” button and you will be taken straight to the site where it was originally saved from. Items can be commented on as well as pinned to Pinterest, or shared to Facebook and Twitter.
Products can be commented on as well as saved or bought.
There are a few other social features that can come in very handy while you are using the site. For one, you can follow other people and continually see what they are adding to their boards. You are also given a profile page where you can add your social networks as well as put a little blurb about yourself. It will also show all the things that you have saved to Wanelo.
Your profile page
One last social feature that I really liked was that not only could you follow people, but you could also follow brands or stores. There are literally hundreds of stores and sites to choose from that you can follow. The way this happens is that whenever someone saves something from a specific site or online store, they get added to Wanelo. The more people that add items from that site or store, the more popular it gets. The nice part about this is that if there is a specific online store or site that you would like to follow to see what people are posting, you can follow them. For example, I love seeing what Uncrate puts up on their site and if I follow them I can then see what people are saving from them.
A glimpse of the online stores and sites that are on Wanelo
Great Place To Find Cool Stuff
One of the first things I had people tell me about Wanelo is that it is just like Pinterest. To be fair, I don’t use Pinterest and I know the basics about it through my wife who is a Pinterest fanatic. But, I think where Wanelo differs is the fact that it is just about things that we want to purchase, and nothing more. After using it for a little while, I could spend a decent amount of time on the site perusing for different things that I thought were cool that I would never find anywhere else.
I think the one complaint I would have is that it seems like there are a lot of females using the site so you do get bombarded with a lot of items that they would buy. But, if you can get past that and be willing to search around, you will find that there are some really amazing things that are being saved to the site and with the addition of searching online stores and sites, that makes it even better.
Final Thoughts
Wanelo has definitely got some stiff competition in the likes of Pinterest, Clipboard, and other sites that are somewhat similar. I think it is good that they were able to distinguish themselves a little by being a place only for products and things we want to buy. But, it will be interesting to see if people will flock to this instead of just using other sites. By the looks of it and the shear amount of things that are being saved to the site, I would say Wanelo is not doing too bad for themselves.
The web app also has a complementary iOS app which I am looking forward to testing out to see how well they work. Wanelo is a great place to find practical as well as not so practical, fun things to buy. We may not be able to buy everything we see, but we can always save them for later when we can afford to using Wanelo.