What is carousell.sg? How does it operate? Is it reliable and trustworthy? Should you turn to it for what it offers or should you simply go with the alternatives? Join me as we take a look at this unique platform as we seek to establish how relevant it is to the current needs we have, that it seeks to address. Everything there is to it will be addressed
- What is Carousell?
- Which cryptocurrencies can you sell or buy on Carousell?
- Fees charged
- How long does it take to make the transfers when using Carousell?
- Countries this platform is available in
- Is Carousell Legit or is it a Scam?
- Pros and Cons
Name of the Platform: Carousell
Official website URL: https://www.carousell.sg/
Overall Rating: 
Recommended: Not Recommended
P.S.
See my #1 recommended alternative to Carousell (for the purchase and sale of cryptos)
What is carousell.sg?
Carousell exists as a Singaporean multinational smartphone and web-based consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplace in which you can purchase and sell secondhand goods. Beyond that, this platform has been turned into one in which customers can also purchase and sell cryptocurrencies, in the same manner in which they’d purchase and sell other goods.
In this kind of web-based platform, customers and businesses identify potential service providers, reach out to them for the products and services they’re offering, then close a deal that sees one of the parties receive the money while the other one receives the commodity or service.
Carousell was founded in Singapore in 2012, but has since then managed to spread its roots to customers who live in:
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
- Philippines
- Cambodia
- Taiwan
- Hong Kong
- Macau
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Canada
This platform is currently available for use in both IoS and Android devices.
Interesting facts :
- The first item that was successfully sold on this platform was an Amazon Kindle e-reader that costs $75. Its operations have since then grown to the extent that Carousell Pte. Ltd has had to employ more than 200 employees.
- This company’s CEO is Quek Siu Rui and the CTO is Lucas Ngoo.
N.B: we shall only focus on the purchase and sale of cryptos on Carousell, for this review.
Which cryptocurrencies can you sell or buy on Carousell?
Carousell exists as a marketplace in which businesses and customers can sell and purchase a wide variety of products and services, so long as they fall within the allowed domain of items that one can trade. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, the same applies- one can look for a business or seller who has the type of cryptocurrency they need and contact them to arrange for a purchase.
Essentially, the platform can make it possible for one to meet a very wide variety of cryptocurrency sellers. At the same time, unfortunately, this may mean that there could be many sellers in this type of marketplace supplying one type of crypto, and no seller supplying other coins (this is unlike other crypto exchange platforms in which it’s quite hard for you not to access and purchase a specific type of cryptocurrency instantly, at any given time).
Fees charged
With platforms such as Carousell, transaction fees vary. Generally, the seller of the crypto may have a different crypto wallet from the buyer. In such a situation, the transaction fees will end up being unique. With most marketplaces, sellers have the liberty to price their cryptos as they please, and this may lead to unique charges for every transaction.
Let’s say that you decide to purchase Bitcoin from seller X today, you may find that he or she has priced the cryptos at $10. After several days if you head to the same platform, the seller may have decided to switch the price of the same cryptos to $15 or $7, which is something that significantly influences the total fees charged. If you also look at each sellers’ profile, you’ll see the way they’ve priced their products and services uniquely.
How long does it take to make the transfers when using Carousell?
Again, the time of transfer may vary from one transaction to the other one. The transaction speed may be affected by a number of things including the fact that the seller may simply decide to act upon the buyer’s request extra fast or extra slow. To avoid a scenario in which you end up dealing with slow sellers, you can always check out their customer reviews and ratings-it’s highly likely that you’ll come across something that will help you know if the seller is reliable or not (as far as timeliness is concerned).
Countries this platform is available in
As we already saw, this platform can be accessed by customers who are living in Singapore, Canada, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia. Being a web-based marketplace, it’s very easy for Carousell to get into other market countries. You can, as such, keep looking whether this platform has been granted permission to operate in your country if by the end of this review you’ll have found it to be trustworthy.
Is Carousell Legit or is it a Scam?
For starters, Carousell is not a scam (in my opinion). I think it’s one whose model we are already familiar with. Having used a platform such as Paxful, which has an almost similar model, I can attest to the fact that Carousell’s model is one that can be quite helpful to buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, this platform has been on the spotlight for having such a large number of scammers in the past. Some service providers, upon getting paid, disappear with the money and do not deliver the item that was paid for.
In 2018, for instance, Police in Singapore reported that Carousell’s e-commerce scams had increased by 136% by the first half of 2018. Such statistics should be sufficient to tell you what to expect from this platform as you head there to purchase the cryptos you are interested in. Spare a few minutes to read through the customer reviews given by Carousell users on Reddit to get an even clearer picture of what customers go through on this platform.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- Wide variety of sellers –makes it possible to compare prices
- Simple to use (like e-bay)
Cons
- Bad reputation for hosting scammers
- Payment methods may be limited to what the sellers are capable of using
Final Words and Verdict
Verdict: Legit (but not recommended)
Overall Rating:
Carousell is genuine, but the sellers on this platform may not always be genuine to you. The fact that there’s a chance for you to get robbed of your hard-earned money should be enough reason to keep off. You can switch to safer alternatives in which you can purchase cryptos using the money in your bank account, without having to deal with other people. You can look at the recommended alternatives below to see how far its owners have gone into making sure that it’s a safe and reliable platform.
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Thank you for making it to the end of this review on what carousell.sg is about, and what it can help you achieve. I hope you found it helpful, and that you now know whether to use it or not, based on the information you’ve gathered here. Let me know what your thoughts are about it, or what your experiences have been with this platform.
I wish you success,
Eric, investor, and team member on Gold Retired!
