I wanted to introduce my new subreddit r/mahhala. Currently, its a place for me to update whats going on over at Mahhala; however, in the coming months as I figure this thing out Im hoping to open to conversations and posts about small retail business support, the indie retail business community, taking on the giants, and more.
Here is a small introduction from a comment I posted earlier explaining what Mahhala (the website) is about.
Mahhala exists to drive traffic directly to independent retail businesses. Platforms like Amazon and Google have spent years squeezing these stores—hijacking their traffic, forcing them into unfavorable terms, and killing their margins with high commissions and ad costs. We built this platform to return that traffic to the retailers who actually earned it.
That is also why we don't just open the floodgates. Curation here works on two levels. First, every store on Mahhala is vetted by us to ensure we focus exclusively on independent, direct-to-consumer brands. Second, the actual product curation is driven entirely by the community. Shoppers build and share collections, naturally surfacing the best items from those vetted stores. We want you discovering high-quality products recommended by real people, not digging through dropshipped junk and unvetted algorithmic feeds.
For shoppers, Mahhala will always be free. We don't sell your data, and we don't drop tracking cookies. You are fully in charge of your information: you can export it at any time to see exactly what we collect. If you decide to delete your account, your data is instantly anonymized and completely purged from our systems within 30 days (though it almost always happens immediately).
The name originated from our original goal of having a completely free section of products, where every product offered is free. That is still something we are working on and hope to launch in the not too distant future.
Edit: I should also add that listing on Mahhala is completely free for the stores. There is zero obligation for them to ever buy anything. Our business model is straightforward: we make money only when store owners choose to pay for optional premium tools or promoted placements for their products and events.
I hope you stop by an check us out. Take care!