Pick-up quotas in Test Areas
The fixed quota test is running in the test areas of: Leicester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Coventry, Swindon, Norwich, Milton Keynes, Cornwall and Devon.
Why is Olio testing pick-up quotas for free listings?
Our analysis shows that 10% of Olio-ers pick up approximately half the listings on the app each month, which is on average £3,000+ of free stuff per person, per year. Alongside this, we have tens of thousands of Olio-ers each month who don’t receive anything at all.
We’re therefore running a test introducing pick-up quotas to ensure listings are distributed more fairly within our community. The benefits of this are threefold:
👨👦👦 More people will have the chance of a successful request
🌍 The Olio community will grow and therefore have more environmental & social impact
💚 If more people benefit, then hopefully more people will become Olio Supporters, which means we can cover our costs, and continue to operate
How many pick-ups can I have before I reach the pick-up quota?
- 100 free listings - Each Olioer can pick up 100 Free listings in any four-week period. After 100 pick-ups of free listings, you will not be able to request any more listings until the number of Free listings you have picked up in the last four weeks drops below 100.
Please note that the 100 pickups are part of an ongoing test we are running, and may well change as we continue to learn how this feature works (e.g. impact on requests per listing, PUA).
How are the quotas calculated?
Quotas are calculated based on the number of Free listings (food and non-food), you have picked up in the last four weeks. A pick-up is created when the Olio-er giving away the free listing marks in the app that you are picking up that listing (they do this in the messaging conversation between you, and you will receive a message confirming that you are picking up that listing).
The quota does not take into consideration the number of items you have received in a particular pick-up e.g. whether you have received 1 bunch of bananas or 5 bunches of bananas.
How do I know how many free listings I’ve picked up in the last four weeks? And how do I know if I have reached my pick-up quota?
Go into the main menu in the app and select ‘My Impact’. At the bottom, you can see how many listings you have received in the past four weeks. This takes into account activity across all sections of the app (For Sale, Wanted, and Borrow) so won’t be perfectly accurate in relation to pick-ups on free listings but it should give you a good idea.
You will know you’ve reached your 'fixed’ quota as you’ll see a message within the app the next time you request a Free listing that takes you over the threshold. In time we hope to build a personalised pick-up counter so you can see at a glance how close you are to the relevant quota.
I’m a paying Supporter - why can’t I request more Free listings?
This probably means that you have reached your 100 free listings quota. You will need to wait until the number of Free listings which you have picked up in the last four weeks drops to below the 100 free listings quota threshold.
How do I know how long I have to wait until I’m able to request Free listings?
You will be able to request more free listings as soon as your number of free pick-ups in the last four weeks drops below 100. We hope to make this more visible in the app in the near future.
How do pick-up quotas affect the 7 in 7 delay?
There has been no change to the 7 in 7 delay so it is still active for users in the pick-up quotas test areas. We do appreciate that there’s a lot of overlap between these features and we are conducting a review of the effectiveness of the 7 in 7 delay with the view to potentially removing it in the future if we roll out pick-up quotas to everyone.