Seattle's Child

Your guide to a kid-friendly city

Shopping for Your Little Ones Just Got Easier Thanks to These Local Parents

 

Being a parent is all sorts of overwhelming. We constantly have to make choices: What diapers to buy, what’s for dinner, did I bathe the baby today? Wait, did I bathe today? You get the drift. Two local parents – who happen to be old friends – set out to make one of those choices easier.  Time to skip the all-night online shopping for baby and toddler products you’ll end up returning anyway, and say 'hello' to VillageHunt.com, a new way to shop with the help of your fellow parent neighbors. We sat down with co-founder Noa Dvoskin who explained to us how it all works.

 

Seattle’s Child: How did you and your business partner come up with the idea?
Noa Dvoskin:  Buying a product today is not easy, considering the overwhelming amount of options to choose from. This is especially true when you become a parent and find yourself constantly researching products that are new to you. We, Sam Hamaoui and I, are high school friends. Sam has two kids, ages 4 and 2. I have three kids ages 7, 4 and 8 months. We found ourselves talking a lot about what products to buy for our kids and, like most parents, we used to seek advice from our friends and other parents around us. We always thought how wonderful it would be if we could simply see if and how a product we are considering works or doesn't work for our parent friends and other parents in Seattle.

 

How does it all work?
On VillageHunt.com community members can easily share recommendations and useful information about products. In order to keep the community and the content authentic, signing up is with Facebook. You can see what other moms are currently researching, and easily help by marking if a product did or didn’t work for you. You can search a product to see what are the top-rated ones among parents in Seattle and what other products are recommended. Looking at a product, you can read quick and honest insights and ask for any info you need.

 

Is this a popular service in Seattle?
A few weeks ago, we did a quiet launch spreading the word among friends and in a few Facebook groups, and already 500 moms from Seattle are using VillageHunt recommending baby and toddler products and sharing great insights. The interesting thing is that we are seeing parents from more than 70 cities all over the US using the site (users can invite friends), and we believe that very soon we’ll be able to open the site for more communities from other cities (looks like Portland is next).  VillageHunt makes the draining process of researching tons of products easy and fun. You can easily find products that are right for you, discover great products and avoid bad purchases.

 

Can you purchase products from the site, or is it mainly for reviewing purposes?
We believe that in order to be unbiased and stay focused on helping people make purchasing decisions that will be right for THEM, it’s important for us not to be the seller. However, products are linked to Amazon so it’s easy to find and buy them.

 

ā€‹For more information, visit VillageHunt.com. 

 

About the Author

Kate Neidigh