It's 10:30pm, and business has never been better. Overzealous merchants peddle their goods, products are being snatched up faster than they're being released, and dozens of trades are taking place at any given moment. It may sound like I'm describing the London Stock Exchange or New York's Wall Street, but the bustling marketplace I'm describing? It's none other than Telegram, the highly popular messaging app.
With a user-interface much like WhatsApp, it is at first glance a messaging platform. Sure, there are additional features that WhatsApp doesn't have, such as an option to pin messages or send polls, but without payment management systems, virtual shopfronts or user verification, it doesn't seem like a traditional online trading hub.
Yet, business is booming.
I had downloaded the app on a whim, after a friend of mine convinced me to install it in order for her to get a "referral bonus". This "referral bonus" of hers, as I was soon to learn, was an extra entry in a giveaway, for free K-pop merchandise. Similar to a pyramid scheme, minus the dubious payment plan, a Telegram channel aims to get as many subscribers as possible, often rewarding loyalty through freebies and discounts. This meant that the owner of the channel, or "admin" in Telegram speak, now had another (slightly clueless) subscriber, or in other words, a potential customer.
At first, navigating this foreign ecosystem was both overwhelming and deeply fascinating for me. Here, small businesses thrived on subscriber loyalty, with subscriber giveaways with large, expensive prizes being ubiquitous throughout the platform. I, who had never won a single giveaway in all 15 years of life, managed to win five different giveaways from five unrelated channels within the first two months of downloading the app. The rush of excitement from opening my mailbox, completely filled with free goodies, cemented my loyalty to not only the channels where the giveaways took place but to Telegram itself. In other words, I was hooked.
With buzzwords such as "claims", "bump", "NM only" and "EEs", the abbreviation-heavy vernacular took some time to get used to. It was easy to identify a seasoned Telegram shopper from a newcomer based on lingo alone, with many shoppers and sellers alike using this mutual shorthand to close deals in the fast-paced marketplace. Because many if not all of the channels selling wares are completely online, with no brick-and-mortar locations save for the occasional popup booth, it meant that this whole carefully constructed community relied heavily on mailing to deliver their goods to the consumer. This also meant that Telegram wasn't exactly the safest place to shop: many GOMs, or Group Order Managers, operate on a pay first, receive after system, where payments are conducted through cash apps or bank transfers before the product is packaged, labelled and shipped off to the consumer.
I talked to a friend about this underground marketplace, still in awe of how smoothly and efficiently it operated. As a seasoned Telegrammer, he commented that this app was significantly more popular among Singaporeans, and this may have led to the gradual shift from messaging app to small business treasure trove. He speculated that K-pop businesses were what really led to the app's accidental success as a business incubator, with many dedicated fans using the platform to buy and trade albums, photocards and various other paraphernalia with like-minded people. This not only gives sellers access to a large number of people in their target audience and but also provides buyers with a plethora of options when sourcing goods, creating a mutually-beneficial trading system. Unlike traditional online marketplaces, rather than having a 'cart' or browsing through glossy images of products on offer, shoppers find the goods they're looking for through messaging channel administrators or sending photos of the items they're looking for, with hashtags such as WTB (want to buy) or WTT (want to trade) to find potential sellers. This creates a highly personal shopping experience, significantly more intimate than the highly automated shopping experiences of eBay or Amazon. This self-sufficient community creates opportunities for novice entrepreneurs, eliminating barriers such as rent and labour costs or complicated paperwork when starting a business. With Telegram, anyone can be an entrepreneur.
What really took me by surprise, when I was slightly more integrated into the Telegram system, was the age of these budding entrepreneurs. I bought a handmade bracelet from a friendly and warm-hearted seller, who cheerily offered me free mailing, an extra ring and a fifteen percent discount "as an early Christmas gift", only to find that this admin, with her excellent customer services skills and even better handcrafting technique, had just turned eleven. I soon discovered that many of the other Telegram users I had interacted with, whether it was the fangirl who liked the same K-pop group as me, or the shop administrator who gifted me a free album, had yet to graduate secondary school. Ranging from the ages of nine to thirty-six, with the mean being somewhere around thirteen years old, many of these enterprising business owners aren't relying on these businesses as a primary source of income, but rather a fun hobby, where additional cashflow is an added bonus.
As many of the sellers see their Telegram businesses as a pastime rather than a financial source, some of them, particularly the younger ones, treat their channels as a group text with friends. I'm used to waking up to "good morning!" messages from the numerous channels I frequent, interspersed with sporadic messages throughout the day about what the channel admins ate for lunch or decided to name their neighbourhood stray cat. I'd both given and received advice from enthusiastic shoppers and shopkeepers, ranging from homework help to friendship woes. Last night, the first 'Happy New Year!' message I received wasn't from a friend or a classmate, but rather from a seller who had once gifted me free photocards. Some may say that the blurring of lines between business and friendship may be highly unprofessional and lead to long-term implications for the business, but I'd argue that these hourly messages accomplish something that many established businesses fail to achieve: truly effective customer service.
Of all the things I truly appreciated about the app, the one aspect that really stuck with me was the community spirit or sense of camaraderie between patrons and entrepreneurs alike. Despite the trust-based payment system, scams rarely occur, with most pricing or product quality disputes being resolved within minutes to achieve a mutually satisfying outcome. When I bought my first item from the platform: a pair of novelty tote bags, I was a little sceptical, keying in my address and wiring $12.00 to someone who was essentially a stranger. Despite having virtually no method of verifying the seller's identity, and having no information other than their username and profile picture (which could be easily changed with the tap of a button), it would have been extremely easy for the seller to take advantage of my blind trust in the system. However, the two tote bags arrived in my postbox less than a week later, both in mint condition with freebies thrown in.
What made this possible was the respect between sellers and their customers alike was an unspoken agreement for both parties to fulfil their end of the deal. Shoppers frequent their favourite channels, providing a steady stream of business for the admins, and the admins reciprocate this by completing their jobs with a sense of responsibility, delivering quality products for reasonable prices. Another reason why this system built on trust succeeds is due to the community spirit between shoppers, who share reviews and past experiences with the various channels and admins on Telegram, ensuring through word-of-mouth feedback that these shops are reliable. One slightly amusing example of this could be the practice of "blacklisting", where there's a whole group chat dedicated to exposing sellers or channels which had scammed users previously, even extending this practice towards blacklisting problematic customers, to prevent future shopkeepers from having to deal with them. This enables this self-regulating system to thrive, with shoppers and sellers keeping each other in check, without requiring an external party to moderate.
Telegram may not have initially intended to become a business haven, but there's no doubt that the success it has had in spring-boarding small businesses is unparalleled. Although it's not the best fit for fussy shoppers, it's the perfect place for students like me to buy and sell merchandise at lower prices. So perfect, in fact, that it's the primary place where my allowance is funnelled into.
Now, if only they added a money-saving feature.