AIP-212: Forever Apes // Upgrade #7 // Enable Shopify to display $APE in eComm stores

Final AIPs Accepted AIPs
1

Forever Apes // Upgrade #7 // Enable Shopify to display $APE in eComm stores

Category: Ecosystem Fund Allocation

Submitted by: Forever Apes Team: 12GAUGE, Brazy, HolocronApe

ABSTRACT
eComm platforms including Shopify are currently limiting adoption of $APE by not supporting it as a displayed currency on products. This proposal presents the idea that the Forever Apes team develop a custom built plugin to address this issue and facilitate the integration of $APE into the displayed currency on Shopify product pages. This plugin will be available to retailers at NO COST and will immediately enhance the platform’s functionality, while increasing visibility and encouraging wider adoption amongst their 2 million plus DAU. We’re choosing to build this plugin on Shopify but recognize it caters to a mostly North American audience, we will expand the plugin’s availability to other eComm platforms once demand is proven.

Product mock for visual purposes only. We’re not selling golfballs…yet:

foreverapes-ecommBall2
foreverapes-ecommBall21920Ă—1708 93.6 KB

(BACK: Current Shopify eComm in USD // FRONT: Proposed Shopify eComm in $APE)

TEAM / AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Brazy and 12GAUGE - We co-founded a digital agency and grew it to 30+ people before stepping away last year to focus on web3. A Creative Director, Brazy has 15+ years of experience in graphic design. 12GAUGE has a background in Video Production and has been actively producing digital media for 10 years. Combined we successfully passed one AIP, one PropHouse and are committed to fostering the ApeCoin community.

Portfolios below, case studies upon request.
Brazy portfolio
12GAUGE Portfolio

HolocronApe - Co-founder of ApeTalent and software engineer with more than 15 years of experience. The last 10 years I have been working with several European startup “unicorns” at varying stages. Although my field of most experience is the development of mobile apps, in recent years I have been more focused on the backend side expanding my skill set as an engineer (full stack profile) focused on creating in web3 with technologies like React, Solidity and Rust. Crypto enthusiast since 2017, in love with the BAYC community, avid traveler, and passionate Star Wars fan (hence my nickname).

MOTIVATION

Shopify is a great platform but it has limitations. In an effort to accept and display ApeCoin on our eComm platform we learned that it is not actually possible to display $APE on the Shopify product pages. This is an unnecessary hurdle on our mission to increase mass adoption and bring awareness to ApeCoin. The availability of this free plugin on Shopify’s App Store is necessary and we believe this will be an important tool of our business development team and further adoption of $APE as an accepted payment method.

(The people want more $APE integration! GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!)

RATIONALE

Shopify has 27% eComm market share and is set up to accept but not display $APE. It is important to make it easily accessible and visible. This can be achieved by integrating it into the front end of platforms like Shopify, which would allow more people to see and interact with it. This increased visibility and awareness would help to educate people about the potential uses of $APE, and support more widespread adoption. Once we prove demand on Shopify we will expand this plugin to other eComm platforms.

SPECIFICATIONS

Our goal is to provide this plugin to all online retailers. Initially, we will assess demand through Shopify, and then make the plugin available on other eComm platforms. Following launch, we will report monthly analytics updates to the DAO discord. We plan to onboard retailers through organic outreach and community based articles.

Plugin Features

  • Display products in $APE converted from USD.
  • Crypto rates updated in real time.
  • Available to all Shopify retailers at no cost.
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT
  1. Begin design on plugin interface.
  2. Create educational / tutorial material.
  3. Begin development and testing.
  4. Submit for review from Shopify team.
  5. Once approved, publish it to the Shopify Apps.
  6. Continue to monitor and maintain.
TIMELINE

Once the DAO approves this AIP, Forever Apes is positioned to implement these steps at once. Design and development will begin immediately.

The estimated concurrent timeline (12 weeks) for the above steps is as following:

  1. Design [1 Weeks]
  2. Educational marketing materials [3 Weeks]
  3. Development / Testing [6 Weeks]
  4. Shopify review & integration [12 Weeks]
  5. Retailer outreach / onboarding [Ongoing]
  6. Monthly KPI updates [Ongoing]

OVERALL COST
This section highlights the rough cost structure including design, development, tutorial material, maintenance and hosting for 1 year.

100% ApeCoin payment would be preferred.

We are additionally asking the Ape Foundation to Tweet about the availability of this plugin at a minimum of once per month.

Total Estimate: $25,000 USD PAID IN $APE

Budget Breakdown

10 Likes
2

Have you had any discussions with Shopify about whether the plugin would be approved or if it would violate any of their T&Cs?

11 Likes
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Hey @Brooklyn , great question. After our conversations and research we are confident our plugin will align with Shopify’s T&Cs. While Shopify cannot pre-approve the plugin, we are certain it will meet their standards.

9 Likes
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Thanks for the quick reply. Curious if there are other plugins out there for unsupported coins.
And what other platforms have similar needs; Wordpress, Big Commerce, etc.

7 Likes
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Good call. With adoption still in its infancy I’d imagine most these platforms lack crypto friendly tools, will do some more digging this weekend.

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Good idea @12GAUGE , is it possible to pay actually on Shopify with any other cryptocurrencies ?

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Thanks. Payment is possible through Coinbase Commerce and a few other providers. The process is similar to BAYC merch drops. Currently they support ApeCoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, SHIBA INU, Tether and USD Coin.

4 Likes
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This is way above and slightly unnecessary.

1-even at the golf clubs where Im not a member they can o a custom one for me way cheaper.
2- stamps on the b.

alls are not good for it specially bigger ones - it will affect it trajectory in a long drive
3- black - ITS A BIG NO
Besides loosing them more easy , forget about night golf
4- This is ApeCoin DAO , how it will bring value to us? This is not an APE or Yuga DAO, lets focus on a Apecoin holders
5- Sponsored by APECOIN should not have your branding on it or any other assets but Apecoin
6- as looking now- not a pro golf producer, i don’t even see any density specification and type of green specification. And 8 Apecoin thats a lot for something that will be lost eventually
9- I do not see any contract allowing you actually using the MAYC scull and its a trademark , we will have to pay YUGA and ALL MAYC too.
Thats a NO this time.
…and apparently DAO sys agrees:

ED439028-2FF8-4EFB-96BF-968E6E794AB2
ED439028-2FF8-4EFB-96BF-968E6E794AB21802Ă—930 154 KB

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Hi @TheFatherOfAllStorms - thank you for the golf ball design feedback, but we’d love if you could review the proposal again without the photo attachment. The design mockup was just a hypothetic visual for the problem we are aiming to solve (eComm products in general) and we didn’t expect anyone to zero in on the design mockup as the proposal.

7 Likes
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Love seeing solutions like this being brought to the table.

Nice initiative.

AC

5 Likes
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Thanks Brazy.

Answer please questions:

  1. Do you play golf ?
  2. If it’s a solution for something - what are you solving?
  3. What is a raw production cost?
  4. Why there is a mutant symbol on a b.a.l.l. or Forever Apesmention, versus Apecoin? Its an Apecoin holders DAO , not a mutant DAO.
  5. How do you bring a value to the Apecoin holders?
  6. What is your actual personal expenses and why production facility itself are not putting a proposal? You could help them and onboard maybe.
1 Like
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I think it’s a misunderstanding, the idea here is not to sell golf ball…

it is just an illustration to give an example.
they could have put a bicycle in the illustration.

The principle is to offer shops on Shopify to integrate payments in $APE.

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This is a great one! I’ve been looking for this functionality for a shopify store!! I’m sure others will utilize this too. This is an essential piece of tech and its being proposed at the perfect time. By building this now, Otherside projects & more can utilize shopify with native $APE token displayed instead of USD.

  • The plugin will be put onto the Shopify Apps for others to use. Will they be charged?
    …that’s my only question!

Very nice proposal. This is necessary ecommerce integration.

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Typically Shopify apps are subscription based and range between $5-$10 per month. This plugin will be available to all Shopify retailers at no cost.

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Interesting idea, and generally I agree with finding ways to make it easier to integrate apecoin into ecommerce platforms.

I am supportive of the concept and like that it would be free to merchants. Any sense on adoption once the plug-in becomes available, or how we should think of this as a success? Does shopify help promote this within the plug-in marketplace to create awareness within the merchant community? Or would we also need to think about an initiative to promote this within the ape community to drive adoption?

Last question for now, how does one think of the ROI for creating these types of plug-ins? For example, out of the 25K investment would the DAO measure this based on the # of installs? Or does shopify show throughput/usage stats for these plugins?

Thanks for the idea, I think it is interesting.

4 Likes
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Hey @wapow - I 100% agree that every AIP including ours should have some sort of roll out strategy / marketing initiative to guarantee success after the AIP process. That said, Shopify does not promote any plug-ins, however we have thought of two strategies to encourage adoption:

  1. With the new WG structure rolling out over the next few months, we do see this as an important tool of our biz dev team.
  2. Recently accepted AIP Thank Ape allows us to reward people for DAO participation, we could potentially reward retailers and their customers for implementing and using our APE plug-in.

Shopify does provide plug-in analytics and we would be happy to share those metrics with the community on a monthly basis.

Thanks for the Qs, would love to chat adoption with you if you have some ideas. :pray:

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I can think of a number of products that would benefit having this option within our ecosystem. This seems like “low hanging fruit” for the dao to help expand use cases for $ape. Have you all received quotes on cost to build this?

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Thanks @capetaintrippy love seeing you in all these discourse topics! We totally agree, many projects in the ecosystem could implement this right away.

We have a couple meetings scheduled with developers (sourced from ApeTalent) later this week and will follow up with an updated budget and detailed breakdown.

Thanks

6 Likes
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This is a great idea! Curious if you have used Bitpay on Shopify? Does it allow you to set price in crypto?

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Thanks @badteeth . I haven’t used BitPay but i have checked it out. Similar to Coinbase it doesn’t have any ability to change your store currency (the price you see products in). Without the use of a Shopify App, store currency is restricted to fiat.

5 Likes