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At first I thought this was so you could sell retail products through all these different platforms. I was thinking.... WHY?! But it is actually for ecommerce

At first I thought this was so you could sell retail products through all these different platforms. I was thinking.... WHY?! But it is actually for ecommerce plugins/apps/add-ons and the customers are those companies making shopify plugins so they can develop once and deploy everywhere. Echoing other comments - a more clear description / example or word other than "App" might help. I think Add-On or Plugin might be more clear in your one liner when referencing all the platforms. Good luck on the launch! Hope the "meet the batch" thing doesn't flop.

Robrechtlr 5y ago
Great point, we have ran into the problem that people misunderstand our product before, especially when they are not familiar with the eCommerce app stores. I'll start testing out plugin/add-on and see if that improves it, apprecaite it!
skeeter2020 5y ago
Disclosure: I work for an established (maybe?) competitor to this idea; I say maybe because it's really not clear what you do until I read most of this thread, nor how you do it (or what's planned vs. available). First, Welcome! This is a huge arena and I think there's a million, nuanced areas for companies to tackle and really focus on amazing merchant experiences. THis is a very big (and growing) pie. Second, I think you'd benefit from trying to increase the clarity of what you do and the value proposition, plus how it all works. For example, I'm not sure how you can provide broad-based api support for 3rd party developers without script injection or strong webhook support, but maybe you've got a new approach? I also admit to being skeptical when you mention a feature as surpassing platform rate limits; we have a continual pain point with shopify, query cost calculation and throttling as an example. Third, we also use a platform-agnostic solution, but then build internally on this before exposing client-facing services. After several years we don't support nearly as many platforms as you; how do you stay on top of all these unilateral changes? Just shopify keeps us on our toes, and some of the ones you mention have little critical mass making them unattractive. Finally, it would probably help adoption if you at least gave some indication of what your pricing is going to look like, even flat rate or %, or totally custom... You're asking people to build solutions on top of your product without any sort of idea of what the long term ramifcations look like. That's a hard sell. Good luck with the venture!
- Eiriksmal 5y ago
  What are some competitors in this space? I would be a customer of one of these businesses.
  - yroc92 5y ago
    Me as well!
- Syntaf 5y ago
  As someone who also works in this space, the idea of a single source of truth for products alone is nuts. That doesn't mean I'm not rooting for Apollo though, and I hope they find a way to bring everything together. Feels like nowadays every ecommerce platform has their own idea of how a product is structured, from variants to modifiers to attribute sets to tags and even the nitty-gritty like fulfillment rules. Just when you think you've nailed down a universal model you'll look at bringing on another integration that brings a unique twist to your constraints. The sheer bullshit alone that you have to put up with when working alongside all of these integrations can drive a developer mad. There have been many times when integrations release critical bugs or become flakey and we end up on the hook after the dust clears and the customers data is not malformed. BigCommerce specifically loves to surprise it's developers with API deprecations on a moments notice, what a joy to be at the mercy of.

Robrechtlr 5y ago

Great point, we have ran into the problem that people misunderstand our product before, especially when they are not familiar with the eCommerce app stores. I'll start testing out plugin/add-on and see if that improves it, apprecaite it!

skeeter2020 5y ago

Disclosure: I work for an established (maybe?) competitor to this idea; I say maybe because it's really not clear what you do until I read most of this thread, nor how you do it (or what's planned vs. available). First, Welcome! This is a huge arena and I think there's a million, nuanced areas for companies to tackle and really focus on amazing merchant experiences. THis is a very big (and growing) pie. Second, I think you'd benefit from trying to increase the clarity of what you do and the value proposition, plus how it all works. For example, I'm not sure how you can provide broad-based api support for 3rd party developers without script injection or strong webhook support, but maybe you've got a new approach? I also admit to being skeptical when you mention a feature as surpassing platform rate limits; we have a continual pain point with shopify, query cost calculation and throttling as an example. Third, we also use a platform-agnostic solution, but then build internally on this before exposing client-facing services. After several years we don't support nearly as many platforms as you; how do you stay on top of all these unilateral changes? Just shopify keeps us on our toes, and some of the ones you mention have little critical mass making them unattractive. Finally, it would probably help adoption if you at least gave some indication of what your pricing is going to look like, even flat rate or %, or totally custom... You're asking people to build solutions on top of your product without any sort of idea of what the long term ramifcations look like. That's a hard sell. Good luck with the venture!

Eiriksmal 5y ago
What are some competitors in this space? I would be a customer of one of these businesses.
- yroc92 5y ago
  Me as well!
Syntaf 5y ago
As someone who also works in this space, the idea of a single source of truth for products alone is nuts. That doesn't mean I'm not rooting for Apollo though, and I hope they find a way to bring everything together. Feels like nowadays every ecommerce platform has their own idea of how a product is structured, from variants to modifiers to attribute sets to tags and even the nitty-gritty like fulfillment rules. Just when you think you've nailed down a universal model you'll look at bringing on another integration that brings a unique twist to your constraints. The sheer bullshit alone that you have to put up with when working alongside all of these integrations can drive a developer mad. There have been many times when integrations release critical bugs or become flakey and we end up on the hook after the dust clears and the customers data is not malformed. BigCommerce specifically loves to surprise it's developers with API deprecations on a moments notice, what a joy to be at the mercy of.