Tapportunities

I identified a need and a niche for discount online stores. 

Create a new and attractive discount store with a rotation of cool new products at an accessible price. 

Develop providers. 

Determine pricing.

Chose tech stack. 

Arrange shipping logistics. 

Design branding and UX. 

Develop policies. 

Tax implications depending on market. 

Implement e-commerce for Mexico and US market. 

Localization.

While the branding, UX design and implementation of the website was something I felt very comfortable doing, developing providers, looking into tax issues for the selected markets and developing policies was something completely new for me and kept me entretained for a little while. 

Overall branding is fresh, new and inviting evoking fast shipping, innovation, trust and a sense of urgency as if you could miss a deal if you don't act fast.  

UX for checkout is effective at achieving conversions.

Heavy focus on easy and attractive browsing,  adding to cart and checking-out. Also Facebook and Instagram ads friendly. 

Mobile friendly, not an app per se, but responsive.

Guerilla style testing. 

You don’t need a lot of people to launch a fully developed e-commerce site if you rely on dropshipping.

Development of providers is crucial for delivering quality on time and ensuring a good customer experience. My dropshipping partner did not have good provider development and relations in place, so each new product added posed a risk to my customers unless I requested a sample to verify quality.  

Careful with state and country specific e-commerce regulations, these change all the time. 

Lead generation through Facebook and Instagram ads takes a lot of views/clicks which translates to dollars. 

Facebook and Instagram regulations are not easy to comply with and verification and authorization to launch pose a significant delay on their part. 

Launch of the store and its Facebook and Instagram presence was successful. Some sales were accomplished through Facebook and Instagram ads. Unfortunately not enough sales were being generated with the budget allocated for ads so I exited the online sales business to return to my corporate career as a designer.