I am confused on who this is exactly for ? Is it for an end user/buyer who is looking to buy something and you just aggregate from various sources based on query OR is this for other developers/providers who are providing their own search interface on their own eCommerce website etc ? I assume the latter but isn't very clear at least to me.
Developers! Anyone who wants to add shopping to their platform, build an e-comm website, or monetize their agent can use Channel3 to earn commissions on the products they sell. Totally see how that could get lost in this post, we tried to focus more on what we built than try to sell to devs. Hopefully our website makes this clearer.
Yep, I should be more precise
> If i’m building an ecommerce website, why would I need your API if I’m just selling my own products?
You're right, Channel3 isn't for existing ecommerce websites. Channel3 let's anyone build a shopping experience (which I vaguely conflated with ecommerce website). You don't worry about managing product, you just build the platform. Some AI shopping experiences like this already exist, check out plush.shop, daydream.ing, and onton.com.
> Can you explain the main use cases when i would want to add shopping to my platform?
In short, if you want to monetize your platform without running ads. What's neat is there aren't really "main" cases -- this is up to the inventiveness of our users! We believe some of the most lucrative opportunities are yet to be imagined. My co-founder, Alex, experienced this problem at his last job when he was building an AI tutor; they decided to try to add an additional revenue stream by letting the AI tutor recommend products. Maybe blogs can integrate an AI-recommended product feed based on their article. Maybe yoga teachers who have a website for booking classes can recommend their gear to their students and earn some money when they do. Maybe someone just loves the color orange and wants to build a shop for orange products. We don't know what devs have in store for Channel3, but we do know agentic commerce is going to reshape how we interact with products!
I still fail to see a positive use case for this. Feels like offering flooding the ocean with toxic slop as a service on the presumption a few of the more lucky customers can pick up some tiny fish corpses floating to the surface.
I was confused at first as well, but I think I kind of get it.
I have a site that has lots of sports data on it. If you go to look at a page for one of the teams, maybe I want to put a link to buy their jersey. I could potentially go direct to the source and apply for affiliate programs from Nike, Adidas, Under Armor, Puma, etc, but that's a lot of effort to both set up and maintain across all the different partners for something that's not part of my core business.
Instead I can just use Channel3's affiliate links. I make a little less, but the trade off might be worth it for the simplicity.
Honestly, I'm not 100% sold on the idea being a good business, but I kind of get the idea. My concern would be maintaining the whale type customers. It feels to me like the product makes sense for minnows who don't have high volume or for people building an MVP or looking for a proof of concept, but once a customer has hit a certain scale, I don't get why you wouldn't just get a direct affiliate program and cut these guys out.
If I'm driving a $1000 a month to Nike and getting 3% from these guys, but I can get 5% by setting up an affiliate program directly with Nike, maybe it's not worth my time to chase that extra $20. If I'm driving $50k a month to Nike then that's an extra $1000 a month I could get by cutting these guys out which feels a lot more worth it.