Shopify and NFT and Web3 app-building platform thirdweb have launched ‘Commercekit’, a new development kit for developers to easily build Web3 commerce apps.
Commercekit and Shopify looks to support merchants in building apps that enable new ways to engage with their buyers. Potential uses include distributing NFTs to create customer ‘segments’ for future campaigns.
This could mean that loyal customers that hold NFTs could access future items on sale, access exclusive sales or products, as well as pre-sales.
This move could also position selling NFTs as a distinct new product category, creating a new revenue stream for businesses.
The US Census Bureau News revealed that 13 per cent of total retail sales come in the form of e-commerce sales. Web3 could potentially accelerate the growth of e-commerce by providing merchants with new ways to engage their audience, run marketing campaigns and reward customers for their loyalty.
For developers and merchants, Commercekit makes it easier to integrate web3 features into their stores & websites. With CommerceKit, you can:
- Distribute membership passes and create on-chain loyalty programs — rewarding loyal customers with exclusive free drops, token-gated products, discounts, and even IRL shopping experiences
- Sell digital collectibles directly through your storefronts, and collect royalties from secondary sales (e.g. one-of-one NFTs, open editions, trading packs, etc.)
- Leverage on-chain data and merge it with existing web2 data to build a more complete customer profile — with web3 metrics such as digital asset ownership and transactions to build more personalized shopping experiences & targeted marketing campaigns
For consumers, Commercekit makes it easier to interact with web3 eCommerce apps without previous blockchain experience — with features like:
- Gasless relayers for merchants to subsidize consumers’ gas fees for blockchain transactions
- Easy NFT checkout for users to buy digital collectibles with credit cards
- Seamless wallet sign-in so that users can log in & manage their accounts seamlessly in the simplest way possible — supporting all of the most popular wallets (e.g. MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and more)
And for developers, Commerce makes it as easy as possible to build blockchain-enabled eCommerce apps by providing a complete web3 development toolkit.
thirdweb explained that it believes the tools used to build Web3 commerce today are “limited and outdated”. It aims for the new ‘Commercekit’ to make building Web3 commerce experiences faster and more simple.
Jake Loo, CTO and co-founder at thirdweb, said:
“We’ve spent the last 18 months working closely with Web3 developers and brands interested in building blockchain apps. It became clear that integrating Web3 with commerce had huge demand and we believe Shopify is the best possible partner we could work with to build these tools.
“We’re excited to be combining our best-in-class Web3 development tools with Shopify’s commerce tools, and we truly believe this will kickstart the Web3 commerce revolution.”
CommerceKit comes with a suite of tools that work with 700+ EVM chains, out of the box, for free. This includes:
- Explore: Acollection of pre-built, audited, and customizable smart contracts — all deployable in one click — for the most popular commerce use cases: token-gating for exclusive access, revenue splits for brand collaborations, NFT airdrops for loyal (& potential) customers, and more. You can also build your own contract with ContractKit, which provides you with base contracts that can be configured with extensions.
- Web3 SDKs: Blockchain SDKs for developers to easily integrate smart contracts and digital assets into eCommerce apps — supporting all the most popular languages such as React, TypeScript, Python, and Go.
- Web3 Auth: Connect existing web2 insights with on-chain data to build a more complete profile for your customers — creating more personalized buying experiences.
- Multi-Chain Support: Connect to over 700+ EVM-compatible blockchains, without changing a single line of code.
- Deploy: Build web3 apps & deploy smart contracts seamlessly with our best-in-class deployment workflow, designed for team collaboration.
- UI Components: Integrate plug-and-play UI components for users to interact with the blockchain easily — without even realizing it.
- Dashboards: Manage, analyze, and interact with all of your deployed contracts conveniently from a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
In the past 12 months, thirdweb has also grown to over 50,000 monthly active developers using their tools and nearly 10,000 active developers doing over 500,000 blockchain transactions a month.
Alex Danco, director of product at Shopify, commented:
“As a merchant, understanding your customers and finding new buyer segments is mission-critical for running a successful business.
“We’re excited to partner with thirdweb, the fastest shipping team in Web3, to help make smart contracts and Web3 wallet addresses an essential part of the commerce and loyalty toolkit.”
