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Zinc – Order products with a few lines of code
- johnnyg 13y agoI've been waiting for someone to build this for a while but wow, that's stiff pricing.
- jeffasinger 13y agoI'm surprised they're not able to give you money off on each order. Amazon gives up to 8.5% of each order to affiliates (and at least 4%).
- tc98103 13y agoI was thinking the same thing. Why isn't this a free service that collects an affiliate fee instead. Seems like it would lower the barrier for adoption.
- ceejayoz 13y agoI'd guess it violates the affiliate program TOS.
- dangrossman 13y agoThe end-user is not clicking through a referral link, going to the Amazon site and making a purchase. How would Zinc earn the affiliate fee? If you're suggesting they negotiate a custom referral arrangement with Amazon, that's probably impossible at the MVP stage.
- arbuge 13y agoThey might be filling orders manually as some suggested. A Turker working for Zinc.io and placing the orders via their affiliate links would do the trick. No need for negotiations etc.
- jeffasinger 13y agoToo many affiliate orders from the same affiliate from the same IPs would probably cause some flags to raise at Amazon.
- dangrossman 13y agoYou can't refer yourself, else the program wouldn't work -- everyone would sign up, everyone would click their own links, and Amazon would effectively have dropped its prices across the board while adding a rebate-processing overhead to every order. That's why program agreements virtually always prohibit this.
- arbuge 13y agoAmazon is careful about this with their affiliate program - but most other retailers aren't in my experience.
- arbuge 13y agoThat would be offering the end user an incentive. Forbidden by Amazon affiliate program TOS Item #14 as far as I can see: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/participation/ https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/oper...
- jessaustin 13y agoAre the prices really so bad? Those fees seem comparable to a payment service provider. This is a different service with presumably lower risks, but if you have to buy stuff and this service replaces a significant portion of an FTE it could definitely be a "reasonable cost of doing business".
- ceejayoz 13y agoAs Amazon doesn't offer an API for this, how's it done? Scraping? Hordes of low-wage folks filing orders manually? What's stopping Amazon from blocking this?
- FriedPickles 13y agoWe use mostly automated processes, with manual intervention only for rare edge cases. One thing that's surprised us is just how many (i.e., non-rare) edge cases there are when you take into account shipping exceptions, order constraints, etc. We believe we are on solid footing both legally and technically, and this has been supported by three years of reliable operation. Unfortunately we're unable to use most affiliate programs. At the same time, we're mostly interested in building a framework that easily scales across to all merchants.
- stephengillie 13y agoI'm curious about why Amazon doesn't have an API for this.
- 67726e 13y agoWhy would they need one? Amazon (in terms of the shopping site) is geared to consumers. Even if she could, why would my mother write a script to order things from Amazon? By using the site, you are exposed to their attempts to convince you to buy other products, or a more expensive version of their current product.
- jessaustin 13y agoI don't assume anything about your mother, but if she ran a business that (1) had some sort of computerized record-keeping and (2) used Amazon-appropriate supplies at a rate that was fairly predictable from those records (although not necessarily predictable per time period), a script targeting this service could save her a lot of time. Now, Amazon might feel like they don't make enough money from such an unimaginative customer to justify the cost of the service. I don't see how it would steal sales from them, however, until it starts using other suppliers as well. Maybe they'll acquire before that gets turned on?
- dangerboysteve 13y agothe 3% and 5% fees seem like complete BS
- yefim 13y agoI think they fill out the Amazon order forms manually so they're just trying to recoup costs.
- ozi 13y agoBut what's stopping them from collecting the affiliate fee? This narrows the use-cases for this quite a bit. Not only are they forcing you to forgo collecting the fee yourself for somebody you referred to Amazon to make a purchase (assuming this is a service/app you've created), you have to pay _more_? So really, depending on the model, you'd have to mark up the Amazon product ~10-13% just to cut even.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jonknee 13y agoAmazon Associate's TOS. You can't get affiliate fees for products you purchase (technically they are still the purchasing agent--you even contact Zinc for a return label).
- jeffasinger 13y agoYea, if at all possible you'd be better off using amazon's add to cart api over this, do to the 13% swing in cost.
- yefim 13y agoWhy does `gift_ship` default to true?
- Jake232 13y agoSo the customer doesn't know the order came from amazon, or the true price of the product? I'm guessing this is aimed at resellers. They likely wouldn't want the end-user knowing this info.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jbrooksuk 13y agoHas anybody else noticed the similarities between this design and Stripe?
- yangez 13y agoWhat's with all these startups taking so much design inspiration from Stripe? https://www.shirts.io/ https://www.shirts.io/ https://zinc.io/ https://zinc.io/
- johnernaut 13y agoMy thoughts exactly.
- jonknee 13y agoStripe is a hit with developers because of their easy API and great documentation. It's not a surprise that other "by techies for techies" API startups are taking inspiration from a leader in the industry.
- roderick3427 13y agoLet's not forget https://infraprint.com https://infraprint.com. They're the Stripe for printing.
- icelancer 13y agoWhat's the problem with it?
- VikingCoder 13y agoWhy would you send "A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates" to Norman Borlaug, the inventor of Dwarf Wheat? Is this some kind of hipster pranking?
- gadders 13y agoNice to see a shout out to the great man that was Norman Borlaug in their order. And the book they chose looks like a fascinating read.
- FriedPickles 13y agoThanks to everyone for your comments and feedback. As we shared on our site, we've been automating ecommerce tasks for a while, but this is our first attempt to open our tools up to the public--and we're learning. We recognize that our current pricing might not make us suitable for all uses, but we think it will work for enough applications to support us as we build out a killer product. We really appreciate your feedback as we work to improve what we view as a very flawed ecommerce environment.
- arbuge 13y agoLooks like a fascinating product. What do you envisage a typical use case to be?
- FriedPickles 13y agoWe can't share all the specifics of what integrators are building, but some are very clever and surprising. Some are automating business processes and other are creating niche resale stores, but the most fun are the creative/novelty uses we've seen.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- meritt 13y agoThis fee structure (3-5%) will not work. Exactly why does Zinc need $50 to process my HDTV order but only $0.15 for my banana slicer? Funding has no transaction fees due to Dwolla transfers and Zinc is most likely taking a cut from Amazon Affiliate program as well (which pays 5-15% commissions depending on category) Make it a fixed per-order fee.
- FriedPickles 13y agoThank you for your feedback. While we do not earn any commission on sales, we are considering moving to a fixed-fee system. I also want to point out that Zinc is free if you are placing fewer than 10 orders/month, which is most of our users.
- meritt 13y agoMaybe I'm just having a tough time figuring out the use case for your free tier, but if I make less than 10 orders/month, exactly why would I go to the trouble of implementing an API?
- siddboots 13y agoI'm guessing people that are just tinkering with the API for the fun of automation. For example, I could use this to order new socks every few months. Just because, yay, unexpected socks in the mail.
- pine 13y agoIt might be the case that people are just tinkering with this service for fun, but the "yay, unexpected socks" use case seems like a solved problem with Amazon Subscribe and Save lists (http://www.amazon.com/Subscribe/b/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&node=979895011&pf_rd_i=subscribe%20and%20save&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=1542108682&pf_rd_r=2FB7714E2588456CAAE1&pf_rd_s=auto-sparkle&pf_rd_t=301&tag=books07059-20 http://www.amazon.com/Subscribe/b/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&...). To each their own, but I just don't see myself reinventing the wheel with this API (not to mention paying an additional 5%) to buy socks/paper towels, when Amazon has already done that leg work for me. I do, however, agree with meritt's sentiment above...zinc.io could be used to create some valuable services for existing businesses (rewards programs, et al), but as a user of this API, I think it'd be much more cost effective as a fixed per-order fee structure.
- rpicard 13y agoI can imagine a company using this to implement an employee incentive system where employees can get any book from Amazon for free.
- brini 13y agoFront page needs an editorial review: Zinc let's you build things... -> Zinc lets you build things... (``let's'' = ``let us'')
- jdotjdot 13y agoHow exactly do I identify the product I want to purchase? There can be many slightly distinct versions of the same product on amazon. It sounds like I would have to pre-select the products that my users would be purchasing, because for them to search for what they want they'd have to use the amazon website anyway. I'm just having trouble seeing the value in this, except for the very specific use case of regular, event-driven, identical, automatic orders (eg, I have my lights hooked up to an intelligent system that notices that the bulb blows out, so it then submits the pre-prepared order for the correct bulb via zinc.io).