The Festival of Lights brings with it new beginnings, to throw out the old and ring in the new. In short, for most of us, this usually means one thing: cleaning. Have things that you don’t use but can still be loved by someone else? Three youngsters from the city, Palkush Rai Chawla, Abhilash Narahari and Aditi Rohan are helping homes declutter this Diwali with their app, Elanic. Needless to say Bengalureans are excited to be getting rid of the old while making money off of it!
“Diwali is one of those days when families care about how their homes look and put in an effort into cleaning and organising. Urban families have more things than they actually need and thought that this festival was a good fit to do away with some of those items,” explains one of the co-founders Abhilash Narahari.
The app is exactly a year old this October and boasts of over three lakh downloads with mostly women using it. “It’s natural that women have packed wardrobes and that’s what we mostly see on the app – a lot of clothing, accessories, handbags, home décor, books and kids accessories,” he adds. If the variety isn’t enough, they also do quality checks to ensure what’s reaching you is actually what was advertised.
One of the main reasons that the app’s response has risen through the roof this festive season and their campaign #declutterdiwali is doing well is because of their offer until October 30 – zero commissions or pick up fee. “It’s also more user friendly than a platform like eBay and has a personalised touch with users having ratings and followers for instance,” says 20-year-old Anushka Rao.
The student is a staunch user of the app and has just sold pieces of clothing and jewellery to make room for some new ones. “It’s better to recycle things any day than to have it lying around without use,” she says, lending an environmentally conscious touch to the engagement on the city-based app.
Another user, Binita M, a quality control specialist from the city found some gorgeous finds during her perennial Diwali cleanse. “I don’t use them but they were in good condition. I didn’t feel like giving them away either, so, I slashed the price and put it up on the price. There’s also an option to negotiate that comes in handy,” she says.
