Not Just For Clothes and Kittens: One Chinese Pinboard Clone Looks Into Home Decoration

Have you had those times when finding an idea or inspiration for your home renovation was such a pain? Searching for designs online is definitely one way out – but the pictures are all over the place on different websites. Or how about those times when you have an idea in mind but you lacked an image to translate your thoughts into a picture for your home designer? I’m sure lots of people, if not everyone, must have faced this problem.

Well, Meilijia – which means “beautiful home” in Chinese – might just be the solution for folks in China. The Pinterest-style startup is an online home decor catalogue that basically provides users with inspirations and designs for new home. We asked the founder, Guo Xin, why he targeted this niche:

This particular service is lacking in China. […] We are aiming to bridge the gap between the needs of the home owners and furnitures suppliers. […] As the B2C and O2O [online to offline] market is pretty much developed in China, we believed that Meilijia has a part to play in this market.

Unlike some fashion-oriented social pinboard sites in China, like Mogujie and Meilishuo, Meilijia is not yet monetizing by sending lots of clicks to e-commerce sites to buy the pictured product.

I have to be honest that I’m rather impressed with the Pinterest clone. One notable feature is that it categorizes its images according to different themes. For instance, users are able to select the style that they want to browse – ranging across western, chinese, mediterranean, modern, retro, etc. This helps users to decide on what they like and what they don’t like, before they go randomly searching for designs. Users are also able to view the recommended designs for the kitchen, dining hall, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and more. Personally, this feature is rather helpful as some users might be just lacking inspiration for certain parts of the home, and in this way, it improves the efficiency of the search.

Images are taken from different angles and views. Unlike those found on home-decor magazines, Meilijia’s images gives users a multi-dimensional look of the house design. Users are also able to bookmark designs and images. In this way, they get to store their “inspirations” and this they will not have to worry where to re-visit those images again.

Meilijia is only two months into its business – so what’s next? Guo Xin shared:

Short term, we are aiming to improve our users’ experience and push our service onto the mobile platform. […] Long term wise, we are looking at the O2O market in the home-decor industry.

Go have a look at Meilijia, you might just find a new reason to makeover your home!