Put your poodles in your pocket and even sell them with Boxes
So maybe you’d hate my vintage poodle figurine collection, but my poodles mean a lot to me, and they live on my desk. You put things you love where you can see them, where your friends can admire them (or pretend to) when they visit… Or you put them on Pinterest. Now you can put them in Boxes too, a pretty little app that lets you share your kitschy poodles (or equivalent) with the world. Plus, if you ever get past that phase and and need to do a poodle purge, you can slap a price on them and sell them through Boxes.
The app comes with four predefined boxes for you to put your stuff in. I immediately deleted the My Electronics box (hardware just doesn’t do it for me). Left the others in case I decide to sell some stuff, or maybe put up pics of a few cool old books I have. I created a box called Bibelots for my poodles.
Then I took pics of my poodles. (Note that when it prompts you to take another pic, it’s in addition to the original; it’s not a do-over.) You can take up to five pics to display for each item. You have the option to apply a filter, which I did, for the full vintage effect. I added titles, chose a category, added a hashtag (#poodle), and put them in my Bibelots box. Then some people liked them (including the Miami Auto Museum, whose motives I question…).
**Home photo studio tip: Tape a large piece of white paper to the wall and let the bottom part fall onto a flat surface. Place your item close to the wall. Good lighting. That’s it. Huge difference.**
If you want to sell an item, tap the Place my item for sale button when you’re adding it. If you decide to sell it later, choose My Stuff from the left menu, tap the item, and then tap Edit. (I’m not selling my poodles. Ever. So don’t get any ideas.)
You can search Boxes for the kinds of things you like. I searched for “vintage,” and saw one guy’s gorgeous old dresser. I started following him because I like his taste in furniture and his avatar’s sexy and he’s in NY (= cool). He followed me back too. Maybe he likes poodles. ;-)
When you open the app, it goes to the News feed of your Home page, which displays “Editor’s Picks” and the most recent items people you follow have posted. Tap the arrow to the right of the Boxes logo to display other viewing options.
The compass in the middle takes you to the Discover page, which shows a random assortment of items. Filter what you see on this page by tapping the icon at the top right (dress, painting, watch) so you don’t have to look at people’s Xboxes or bicycles if you don’t want to… Unfortunately, your filters aren’t saved, so you have to do this every time you open the app after quitting it (but not after closing it). (Don’t know the difference? Let me know.) Pull down to change the contents of the page.
Tap the speech bubble icon on the right for info about what the people you follow have been up to (bottom of the screen, left tab) and who has liked your items, followed you, etc. (right tab).
I really like this app and could get quite addicted to shopping through it because using it is so pleasant. I need to be able to permanently filter out stuff I’m not interested in though. And I’d like to be able to browse only items that are for sale in a given category and/or with a specific hashtag. Seems like now you only stumble across things that are for sale. Hopefully they’ll be adding that feature soon, since I’m entering a seahorse obsession phase and will be needing some vintage seahorse jewelry. Like ya do.
If the community reaches a certain size, Boxes could be a great sales platform for people who make things. It might also have the potential to be like an Etsy or eBay that got the community thing right, because those two mega-marketplaces certainly haven’t.
Devices: iOS
Cost: Free
Boxes on the App Store
