This is a great app idea for the PH!

There’s a lot of great stuff to be bought online, problem is you never really know what you’re going to be charged when the people at the customs house get their hands on it. Add shipping costs to that equation, and most people just avoid buying items overseas. But people in Singapore have a solution to that problem in the form of Airfrov, a unique service that pays people to pick up your items from all over the world.

If you’re based in Singapore, you can ask other people to pick up items for you from around the world. The service pairs buyers with frequent travellers who don’t mind picking up an item abroad, putting it in their luggage and flying back. This circumvents shipping fees and potentially higher customs charges when bought and shipped without the service. Both buyer and seller will need to agree on a price for the item, and Airfov earns 7% off of the agreed price.

To facilitate payments (and to ensure no one goes back on their word) Airfov holds the payment of the item from the buyer in escrow, while the traveller then buys the item in the US using their own money. Once he/she gets back to SG, they can either deposit the item at Airfov’s office or meetup with the buyer, who will then release the payment from escrow to the traveller.

We think this is a great idea for an app here in the PH. Asking friends and family to bring back items from abroad is normal here in the PH, and it’s about time we incentivized the practice. If Airfrov is willing to setup shop here in the PH, or if any other local developer can set up a similar service, you can bet that we’ll be ordering enough man toys from the US and other countries it could blot out the sun.