Sometimes less is more; why Cardtonic’s mobile app may just be unnecessary

As more gift card trading platforms increasingly push and compete to improve services, Cardtonic, one of Nigeria’s vendors, has launched a mobile app that is thought to facilitate process in a more structured manner.

While the app has been listed online for public download, reviewers are not seeing the need for a differentiated mobile app in the general business make-up of gift cards that covers buying, exchanging and selling.

With the use of instant messaging apps like Telegram, Whatsapp etc., hitch-free trading has been made possible with real time speed for gift cards’ players.

While Cardtonic is now adding to the process with the new need to download app, register and launch at every transaction time, platforms like SellCardBTC and Paxful are easily accessed via Whatsapp without extra data cost to complete transactions.

This makes Cardtonic even more expensive as users will dispense data and might also be at risk of privacy breach. We have seen this happen even with tech giant Facebook.

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What gift cards platform, instead, should be working to improve is the organisational business culture that will include validation and trust building. A good example is what Patricia, another gift cards platform is praised for. Trust building in any business cannot be overemphasized.

From iTunes, Amazon, Walmart, Steam, Target, Physical cards, E-codes, single big denomination cards, etc for Naira and Bitcoins; Patricia has earned users trust and seems to commit to this end.

If Patricia is recording any significant success, it won’t be for speed or the launch of a novel app, instead, for the trust its user community had built via its use.

From an analyst point of view, business and product developers must endeavour to pay close attention to market needs before embarking on projects that might not be the need at a given time.

For these reasons, and not to mention limited speed, Cardtonic mobile app might just be unnecessary. Sometimes, less is more.

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