Radical replacement for eBay?

The Baby Safety Gate works better with fat babies. Source: Supplied

IT SEEMS every other week a new online start-up launches with an 'X meets Y' proposition.

Well, now a team from Melbourne is trying to monetise video-obsessed Millennials with an eBay-meets-Vine trading platform.

Pitchi is an online marketplace similar to eBay, but with a catch: every listing must be accompanied by a video up to 60 seconds long.

The hope is Pitchi will attract the kind of viral attention gained by tongue-in-cheek ads such as Brad and Adam's 'Flatmate Wanted' video, or Misty King's '4x4 with Steak Knives'.

The rationale, according to founder James Curtain, goes something like this: there are around five million Millennials in Australia, about 10 per cent of whom would use sites like eBay to buy and sell goods.

Combine that with recent research showing people between the ages of 16 and 24 are watching 16 hours and 28 minutes a month of online video, and you have another one of those 'X meets Y', 'untapped market' opportunities.

In a time when people with names like 'Nash' and 'Scooter' can become famous for pouting into their phones while Facebook pours buckets of ice over everyone, it may not be so crazy to expect someone to spend 60 seconds recording a funny video to sell their second-hand TV.

The big question is whether people will look on it as anything more than a gimmick, given the ease of existing trading platforms such as eBay, Trading Post or Gumtree.

Mr Curtain concedes it's a fair point. "eBay is always going to be there, Gumtree and Trading Post are always going to be there," he said. "We've tried to make the processes on Pitchi as streamlined as possible.

One pencil, infinite possibilities. Source: Supplied

"In this day and age, everyone's got a pretty good video camera on their phones. If you look at the demographic we've geared this towards, they've all grown up with video, they all know how to shoot."

He said the ideal video wasn't highly polished or over-produced. "The best ones on the site are a bit raw, they ones that are filmed with an iPhone. It gives it that human element."

Asked why he chose to take the hard route of building a video platform from scratch, rather than piggybacking on an established audience like YouTube or Vimeo, Mr Curtain said it was about control and ease of use.

"We made the decision to build our own video service because we didn't want it to be an afterthought. Other websites we compete against [such as Gumtree] have the ability to add a YouTube link, but it's a little clunky. Also, as soon as you integrate a third-party site, you've lost the ability to keep an eye on things."

Mr Curtain is apparently referring to Pitchi's long list of prohibited items, in keeping with its wholesome target market: anyone wishing to sell animal traps, drugs, organs, body parts, adult material, stolen goods or weapons will have to look elsewhere.

The site also currently only supports single listings. It doesn't yet have the capability to accommodate wholesale merchants like on eBay, but Mr Curtain said that was the goal.

"That's where the commercialisation sits," he said. "We've identified about 3500 sellers that sit in that space who we've now started talking to."

THE TOP FIVE PITCHI PITCHES

A seller is using a video ad on pitchi.com to move his baby gate, which evidently his child is too slender for.

A seller is using a video ad on pitchi.com to get rid of a pair of aviator sunglasses, which dramatically increased his status with the ladies.

An example of a more trivial item being sold on pitchi.com; a seller is using an ad to sell a pencil for $1.