Questions & Answers
1. What is YouMrkt?
YouMrkt is an online market that helps local entrepreneurs, individuals with a specific skill set, established businesses, or anyone market their talents and services via their own web profile stored in our services directory. The quality of one's work will be established via a 5 star rating system present on every business page.
2. Why was YouMrkt created?
YouMrkt was created to help foster entrepreneurship and to increase competition in different service markets. It begins with a simple concept: Each of us have a variety of skills or services that we can offer to our local community, however, these often go unused because of the difficulty, the time, and costs of marketing. By making it easy for anyone to enter a service market while keeping them accountable for their quality of work we can drive job creation as well as improve competition.
3. Who created YouMrkt?
A Johns Hopkins student.
4. How much does it cost?
YouMrkt is completely free.
5. How does YouMrkt make money?
The short answer is: we don't. YouMrkt is currently focused on growth in the Baltimore community and surrounding areas.
6. How is YouMrkt different from other sites?
YouMrkt addresses many problems found on commonly used websites such as Craigslist with regard to Services.
Craiglist: vs YouMrkt
1. Craiglist: On Craiglist a person can offer their services, but you know nothing about them or the quality of their work.
YouMrkt: YouMrkt has a 5-star rating system similar to the one used on Ebay where a person may rate the price, professionalism, and quality of work of service proviers as well as assign an overall rating. The better the rating a company/individual has the more you can trust their work.
2. Craiglist: On Craigslist a business or individual must constantly repost their business information every couple of days.
YouMrkt: On YouMrkt a service provider posts their information once and their profile is created and stored on the server. It may also be completely updated at any time.
3. Craiglist: On Craiglist key business information is often posted in different areas on the page depending on the poster.
YouMrkt: YouMrkt structures key business information in specific sections, so you know exactly where to look on the page to get the information you want.
In addition:
1. Instead of calling a business or using your personal e-mail a user can message a business via the YouMrkt messaging system and describe the service they need.
2. Instead of contacting service providers have them contact you. On YouMrkt users can post jobs for services they need. Service Providers in those respective categories will then be notified by e-mail of your job post.
2. YouMrkt offers a gmaps locator on the business pages so you can easily see where a business is located.
3. On YouMrkt you can easily distinguish between a business or a freelance entrepreneur.
4. As a business on YouMrkt you can choose the keywords that link to your business profile page.
7. Why is YouMrkt limited to Baltimore right now?
YouMrkt is in beta phase. We are cleaning up bugs, testing different ideas, and getting user feedback before going national.
8. Why do I have to sign up through my cell phone?
We want to limit each individual to only one user account. Traditional websites have you signup via your e-mail address. However, it is easy to have or create multiple e-mail addresses. Most people only have one cell phone. This helps deter businesses from rating themselves highly with fake accounts. And no, we do not sell your number to others.
9. How many businesses per user account?
Unlimited. Because a person may have two completely different skill sets they can create multiple businesses as well as select multiple subcategories for their business.
10. Who can post a job?
Anyone with a user account can post up to 4 jobs on YouMrkt.
11. What kind of jobs should be posted?
Any type of job can be posted. We also encourage posting simple service requests such as fixing a leak, help building a personal website, or seeing out a local tutor. This allows businesses or freelancers to seek you out and potentially compete for your business. Permanent positions at a company are also welcomed on the site.
12. How will businesses know if a job is posted?
Businesses will be contacted via e-mail or potentially even cell phone text-message when you have posted a job in their service section.
13. What's up with the Artist section?
The artist section was created for Artists to easily showcase their artwork, photography, crafts, or anything else (no nudity please).
Note: this is for art only and not personal pictures of friends, family, etc.
14. How does it work?
Artists can easily create a profile by filling out a form, and uploading a profile picture. They can also upload and maintain pictures which will be presented in a gallery.
15. How many pics per gallery?
30 pics per gallery and a limit of 3 galleries per person.
16. What's up with the thumbs?
We realize art is subjective, but you can give a picture a thumbs up if you like it. You can also sort artists in the Artist Browser by the number of thumbs they have received.
17. Musicians?
YouMrkt is a community where anyone can showcase their skills, and so we also include a section for local musicians. Bands can upload songs, pictures, videos, concert info, and any details about their group.
18. How do I rate a song
When a song is playing on the music player you can rate it by hovering over and clicking the vertically aligned stars in the top corner. Each song can be rated between 1-5 stars.
