The iPhone and iPad Blog by Simon

Planning to buy something online?

The usual sites that’ll pop up in your mind include Amazon, eBay and OLX.

While these sites offer a wide audience to sell to as well as loads of products to buy from, they have a fair share of drawbacks. For example, they don’t provide many details about the seller of a product, or who’s your product going out to, which can make you, feel a bit uneasy.

So if you’re the one for trust, you might be better off using Bondsy , an iPhone app that lets users post any product, but with the feature that its only visible to friends and acquaintances. Additionally, any products ads posted to the app can also be posted to a website or a social network, without any editing.

How to use Bondsy for iPhone

After downloading and installing the app on your device, you’re presented the welcome page where there are no stranger visible. You can sign up using your email credentials; the app will also request you to use your real name and add a real photo. These measures might not be foolproof, but Bondsy only lets people in your network view your posts.

After signing up, the app will search for contacts in your phone book to detect those who are already on the Bondsy network. If there are no results, you can send out invites to fellow iOS users.

Only friends or friends of friends can view the product ads you create, and you get an option to define the visibility level for separate posts. A new post can be created through the ‘+’ icon at the right of the bottom bar. This requires adding a photo by taking a new image or selecting one from the camera roll. The next steps include adding a text description and a price tag for the product.

You’re recommended to define post visibility before hitting the post button. The posted ads appear in the main interface, from where they can be shared in an email or on Twitter and Facebook. For sharing to a website, copy the URL for the ad through the sharing menu.

For buying anything listed on the network, you can tap the grab icon over a specific post. Another benefit of using Bondsy is that it lets you chat with the owner before you make a purchase.

Final thoughts

Bondsy is a great application for buying stuff from people who you trust more than others, and selling to those who you already know to avoid potential fraud. The app is free to download and you can download it via this iTunes link. Let us know your experience if you try out Bondsy.

This article, Bondsy App: A New Way for Friends to Trade Things, was originally published at simonblog.com.