Why SmaKi?
Learn with an online flea market, digital wallet and academy 7 to 14-year-old children sustainable practices, conscious housekeeping and safe digital behavior.
Welcome to the information area for parents
Here you will find everything you need to know about SmaKi. Security and transparency are our top priorities!
SmaKi – Simply explained
What functions do children use on the online flea market?
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Sell article
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Recommended retail price
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Buy article
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Shipping & collection
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News
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Memo & wish lists
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Balance
Children can post and sell items independently on the online flea market. The SmaKis explain that the items must be in good condition and what they should look out for in texts and images on the Internet. Approval for publication of the article is given by the parents. The children receive SmaKi points as a reward for successful sales. If another child buys the item with their parents' approval, the payment is triggered from the SmaKi exchange. When registering, parents make an iniital pay in of a starting balance into their child's SmaKi wallet.
Based on the stored item information, the SmaKis help the children with a sales price recommendation. Parents can send newly posted items back to their children with comments and price change requests during the approval process.
Children can search for age-appropriate items on the online flea market and send purchase requests to their parents for approval. The SmaKis give the children tips on what to look out for when shopping. If they want to buy something, a purchase request is forwarded to the parents. If a parent approves the purchase, the payment is triggered. The transaction takes place between the SmaKi wallets of the two children and reduces or increases their available balance.
It is possible to pack and send or collect items. In the basic settings, parents can define what their children are allowed to use for purchases and sales on the online flea market. The radius is also specified for collection. If parents decide that their children may only buy items for collection, they will only be shown items within the specified radius. Cash payments are not possible - not even on collection.
Children can use specially prepared text modules to clarify questions about shipping or the place and time of collection with the buyer or seller child. Parents can choose how much they want to control communication in the settings. This means that parents define whether they want to approve incoming messages before they are displayed to the children. In principle, every communication can be checked and approved by the parents.
Children can add items to watch lists or wish lists, e.g. for their birthday, and send them to other children. They can also organize birthday presents for friends themselves in this way.
In a digital wallet, children can see their available balance at any time, which they can use independently. See section "Digital wallet" for more information.
How does the digital wallet work?
To get the trade going, parents need to make a initial pay as a starting balance of minimum 27.50 euros to the SmaKi wallet. For this purpose, a payment account / wallet is opened with SmaKi's payment service provider. Parents can either have their children pay the starting balance themselves from their pocket money or parents can use the SmaKi launch as an opportunity to offer a gift.
A transaction overview shows income and expenditure on the online flea market, special deposits and withdrawals, savings and the money available for further purchases. Children learn to control their income and expenditure in a child-friendly way and at the same time develop an initial understanding of how to handle money. In order to be able to display a correct overview of earnings and spendings at all times, all payments must be made digitally. Cash payments are not possible.
Parents can pay in the children's pocket money, birthday money or money from grandparents into their child's digital wallet and thus increase the child's balance. In the same way, pay outs can be made if children want to spend part of their balance "offline".
Children can distribute parts of their earnings to self-defined "Sparschweine". These make it easier for children to save up for larger purchases or more expensive children's items that they want to buy at the online flea market.
The digital wallet displays the spending limit that the parents have set for the child per month.
In the digital wallet, the children can see the number of SmaKi points they have collected for sustainable action, saving and successful learning. The SmaKis give the children clues as to the score at which they can receive the next reward.
What content & formats does the Academy offer?
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Learning formats
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Sustainability education
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Digital education
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Financial education
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Early career guidance
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Ratings & Surveys
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Learning success
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Appearance
The SmaKi Academy publishes new learning content once a week in various attractive formats. They include entertaining articles, podcasts, educational videos, interviews with children, parents and experts, testimonials and success stories, short documentaries and reports, tips & tricks from kids for kids, animations and interactive presentations.
We explain the environmental benefits of responsible consumption, emphasize the importance of waste separation and waste reduction and explain the impact of flying, train and car travel and personal carbon footprint. We create a basic understanding of diversity, inclusion and equality, and much more.
We teach the basics for safe use of smartphones, surfing the net, apps, messengers, social media, personal data and data protection, cyber security, phishing emails and explain new developments such as artificial intelligence and much more.
We explain the meaning of saving and budgeting with your own pocket money. We enable children to assess the value of things and learn to appreciate them. We explain everything to do with (digital) money management, handling digital pocket money and much more.
We explain educational and career paths after leaving school. Children develop an awareness of their own interests and tendencies at an early age. In terms of content, we focus on professions with a shortage of skilled workers, such as digital and social professions, engineers, trades or gastronomy. In one of the formats, children introduce their parents' professions to other children.
Children can rate how helpful and interesting they find the learning content. We launch a feedback survey once a quarter. Here the children can name topics they would like to learn more about. You can ask questions that you would like to have answered in one of the next learning contributions.
Each article ends with a quiz with 3-5 questions on the respective content. For each correct answer, the children receive Smaki points for successful learning. Quizzes and rewards arouse the children's curiosity and motivate them to actively participate and learn.
The Academy publishes one or two new learning contents once a week.
What control mechanisms are there for parents?
Depending on the child's age, maturity and level of responsibility, parents can set limits on sales & purchases on the online flea market (maximum number per month) as well as restrictions on collection and shipping (both possible, only collection possible, only shipping possible). The radius within which the child is allowed to buy/sell items is also specified for collection.
Parents define the degree of independence of their children. You specify whether you want to enable the posting of each item, purchases or incoming/outgoing chat messages. Children can also use predefined text modules for communication between seller and buyer child.
For the online flea market and the academy, parents can define the age group for which products and content should be displayed to children. Optionally, they can assign specific learning content to the children.
We invite parents to actively provide feedback, express concerns and make suggestions for improvement at any time. Together, we can ensure an age-appropriate user experience.
How safe is SmaKi?
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User registration & identification procedure
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Anonymized child profiles
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Reporting system
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Robust security measures
User registration is carried out by the parents and includes email verification, explanation of the platform guidelines, creation of the parent account and the child profile. To activate the account, the following requirements must be met: 1) Identification and verification of the parents via an online identification procedure and a check of the child's ID document. 2) Entering payment method for pay ins and pay outs and for the initial pay in of the starting balance.
The child profiles are assigned to the parents' main user account. Parents define login data, profile names and a SmaKi avatar as a profile picture for the child and can call up the profile data at any time and adjust it if necessary. After the first login, children can customize the SmaKi avatar according to their preferences. The SmaKi avatar enables children to use the entire learning platform anonymously and also serves as a personal companion for learning support.
In the event of violations or behavior contrary to the platform, parents and children have the option at any time to inform the platform operator immediately via "report buttons" and activate them to take action. The SmaKi Support Team will investigate the violation and take appropriate action, which may range from removal to warning to blocking certain users. Examples are products that are not age-appropriate or interaction and communication that is not age-appropriate.
We implement robust measures to ensure the highest possible level of security in all areas of the platform. Solid review mechanisms ensure an age-appropriate product range as well as age-appropriate communication and interaction. This is done through continuous moderation, automated platform processes and verification, supported by platform guidelines and parental controls. We are committed to transparency and compliance with the highest standards for data protection and anti money laundering. We enable secure transactions and verify all user profiles through identification procedures. A robust detection system provides additional protection for the platform.
How does payment work and how much does SmaKi cost?
The monthly SmaKi membership fee is deducted from the child's digital wallet and reduces the available balance. Children finance their SmaKi membership themselves through their earnings. Membership can be terminated at any time. Upon termination, the remaining balance is paid out and no further costs are incurred. Membership fees already paid will not be refunded.
SmaKi charges a small SmaKi protection fee for secure payment processing via the payment provider for every purchase. This is based on the amount of the selling price and is calculated automatically when the item is listed and is to be paid by the buyer-child.
All purchase contracts and transactions take place legally between the parents of the seller and buyer children. A secure payment gateway from a proven payment provider enables smooth deposits and withdrawals as well as transactions between the children's digital wallets. Parents can release each individual payment, provided they have not given their general consent.
Parental control at a glance
Questions & Answers
The SmaKis guide the children through the online flea market step by step, especially when listing items. We assume that children will master this relatively quickly on their own thanks to their quick comprehension and digital affinity. Therefore, we would like to answer the question from our experience as follows: You as parents primarily invest time in approvals and feedback with change requests and initially in checking the condition of the items to be sold.
Basically we promise We have noticed an increased self-motivation among children to regularly tidy up and sort out their toys in order to sell them on SmaKi at the weekend and thus increase their pocket money. Thanks to this growing independence, the parents’ time investment in the entire family is reduced.heitliche organization of children’s things.
There is a reporting system. Please use the button provided for this purpose. The SmaKi platform operator will take care of the rectification as quickly as possible.
One of the biggest challenges for all parents is to sensibly limit, control and adhere to their children’s screen time for app use, games, series and videos. We at SmaKi are aware of this and would like to tackle this challenge together with you – or rather, not make it any bigger.
That’s why we only open the SmaKi online flea market on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, giving children the opportunity to concentrate on school, learning and their other activities during the week.
At the same time, we are convinced that children use their screen time on SmaKi in a fun and enjoyable way. This is for the development of extracurricular skills such as sustainable action, safe digital behavior and responsible money management. In order to promote these important life skills holistically, we publish new, attractive learning content on these topics every Wednesday in the SmaKi Academy.
SmaKi can be canceled at any time. The remaining balance is paid out. The membership fee already paid will not be refunded.
The increased safety measures to promote the independence of 7 – 14 year old children in a protected space require increased investment compared to other platforms. The membership fees are used for the implementation and continuous further development of security measures and functionalities as well as the operation of the platform.
One of the aims of SmaKi is to provide financial education for children aged 7 – 14 and to develop a responsible approach to money at an early age.
The digital SmaKi wallet, which visualizes an overview of earnings and spendings from purchases and sales as well as the resulting balance, serves this purpose. All payments are processed digitally to ensure a correct overview of income and expenditure at all times. Cash payments are therefore not permitted on pickup. For you as parents, this also has the advantage that you do not have to organize the payment between seller and buyer child at the front door.
Minors from the age of seven have limited legal capacityin accordance with Section 106 BGB . They may be subject to
§ 107 BGB
make declarations of intent, but according to
§ 108 BGB
the consent of their legal representative in order to make an effective declaration of intent. Approval by the representative is required for the declaration to take effect.
Based on the legal situation, the actual legal transactions on the SmaKi online flea market take place between the parents. When registering and creating the child profile, the legal representatives give their consent. For the safety of parents SmaKi extended control functions. Parents can define their child’s level of independence in the settings and set appropriate control and approval mechanisms for buying and selling items.
Transactions take place via the children’s digital wallets via the secure payment gateway of a payment provider.
When listing items, the SmaKis help children to select the correct package size from DHL and add the corresponding shipping fee to the selling price. You can check these in the release process. We ask parents to support their children in packing, franking (buying & affixing the DHL shipping label) and sending if necessary and to empower them in the long term. In the further development of SmaKi, the integration of shipping processing via DHL plug-in is planned. This should enable the children to stamp independently and correctly.
We would like to give you a few tips for accompanying your children:
- To begin with, familiarize yourself with the objectives, functions, security and control mechanisms of SmaKi.
- Accompany, supervise and control your children according to their age, level of maturity and independence.
- Decide whether you want to approve all sales and purchases or give basic consent for your children to act without individual approvals.
- Determine whether your children are allowed to buy and sell items for shipping and/or pick-up and specify the desired radius for pick-up.
- Define whether you want to see and approve incoming messages to coordinate the dispatch or pick-up location and time.
- Define the age group and categories for which articles and content should be displayed to your children.
- Regularly checks that the settings made are appropriate.
- Encourage your children to muck out and sort things out in anticipation of the next SmaKi flea market weekend.
- Point out new interesting learning content to your children and remind them of the rewards.
- Help your children with packing, franking and mailing and enable them to do this independently.
- Check the condition of the items for sale for a certain period of time and help them to develop a good feel for it themselves.
- Give us feedback, let us know your concerns, send us your suggestions for improvement so that we can continuously improve the learning experience for your children together.
- Report violations of the guidelines and behavior that is not age-appropriate.
SmaKi sends a limited number of helpful notifications and reminders to the children in addition to the system notifications about the activities. Examples are: “Time to sort out, the SmaKi online flea market opens in two hours…”, “New interesting learning content for you…”, “You’re only 100 SmaKi points short of your next reward…”.