Ideas Lab
Real problems people complain about online, pulled every morning and scored out of 100. Build, validate, or skip. How scoring works
- Ideas
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- 3h ago
Community-driven product recommendation system
Consumers want trusted product recommendations from real people, not algorithmic suggestions. Community-curated catalogs could help people discover products through peer recommendations.
YC Graveyard20y agoToolE-Commerce
Fast food ordering apps fail to convey dine-in preferences
Apps like Burger King's do not reliably communicate 'dine-in' selections to staff, resulting in bagged orders despite requests for trays.
X7mo agoToolE-Commerce
Ecommerce configurators hide product availability
Product customization tools allow full configuration before revealing the item is unavailable for order, wasting user time.
X7mo agoToolE-Commerce
Hard to scan photos for similar items, best prices, and quick buys
Users, especially young shoppers, struggle to easily scan images (e.g., outfits, construction issues, watches) to identify products, check authenticity/prices, and buy from best sources; existing tools like Google Lens are not user-friendly or shareable enough.
X8mo agoToolE-Commerce
Ecommerce team workflow for small brands, how do you keep ops from becoming chaos?
Running a small ecommerce brand means wearing six hats and moving fast enough that things slip constantly. Last month we almost missed a supplier deadline because the follow-up task lived in a slack message that got buried under a product launch thread. Caught it two days before it was too late. We're a four-person team and we can't afford a dedicated ops person to keep a project board updated. Every tool we've tried requires someone to be the maintenance person and nobody wants that role on top of their actual job. Curious how other small ecommerce teams handle the coordination side without it becoming a second job.
Reddit8mo agoToolE-Commerce
Advice for new business idea?
Hi all, I have an idea for a product and a target audience in mind, but I would like to make sure I do everything I can correctly. In the past I started a clothing brand and while I found minimal success, it was just that, minimal. I had very little clue what I was doing and felt like I skipped many steps, lost money where I didn’t need to, and never fully honed in my product, brand, or focus enough to become established in the way I was seeking. The business landscape has changed significantly with AI in the past few years and I was wondering what tools I should be using and things I should be looking out for to set myself up for the most success? While it seems like this is rarely the case, are things like brand coaches, strategist, SEO specialist, or any of the like worth it, or are these skills more important for a founder to have? Where can I go to fully understand everything I need to and should? One of my biggest concerns personally is that while I have a great product In mind and somewhat of an audience, I don’t think it’s clear/niche enough to really capture in ads. Where can I go or what kind of people/tools can I use to help me improve this and overall make sure that I’m on the right track and not missing anything vital for the successful of this business? I know this post may be very telling in regards to how little I know at the moment but I would love to learn and really fully understand what I need to do to. Thank you all in advance for your help!
Reddit8mo agoToolE-Commerce
How do you handle short-form video for your store?
I run a small lifestyle brand on shopify and video content is eating me alive. I know TikTok and insta/reels drive traffic, but actually producing enough content to stay consistent is a different story. Right now I'm basically spending a sunday afternoon batch-filming with my phone, editing manually, and still only getting maybe 2-3 videos out per week. It's not sustainable and I can't justify hiring an editor yet. I've tried a few AI tools but they're mostly designed for repurposing long-form content, or making really generic short clips and not really built around showcasing products. Also output in general seems to be very generic. A few things i'm genuinely curious about: * how many videos are you putting out per week, and how long does it take you? * has anyone found a AI tool or workflow that actually works well for product-focused short-form video? * what's your biggest bottleneck: scripting ideas, filming, editing, or just staying consistent? Would love to hear what's working for people at different stages. I feel like everyone says "just post more video" but nobody talks about the actual process behind it.
Reddit8mo agoToolE-Commerce
Mailchimp alternatives for ecommerce: has anyone used Campaigner, Klaviyo or Omnisend?
Hey everyone, long-time lurker here. I work in marketing at a mid-sized e-commerce company (\~30k contacts, selling home goods) and we've finally hit the wall with Mailchimp. The automation is too limited for what we need and the pricing keeps creeping up without us getting much more value. Our main use cases are: * Abandoned cart sequences * Post-purchase flows * Occasional SMS blasts to our best customers * Segmenting by purchase behavior (frequency, AOV and product category) I've been going down a rabbit hole this week and narrowed it down to three platforms. Here's where my head is at so far: **Campaigner** \- honestly this one flew under my radar until recently. Looks like it's been around forever (20+ years?) and the automation workflows and segmentation seem genuinely advanced. The UI looks a bit dated from the screenshots though? Has anyone actually used it for e-commerce or is it more of a B2B email tool? **Klaviyo** \- everyone in e-commerce seems to swear by it. The Shopify integration looks seamless and the segmentation is clearly best-in-class. But pricing scales fast once you're past 25k contacts and I've seen some complaints about it getting expensive quickly. Is it actually worth it at our size or is it more for larger DTC brands? **Omnisend** \- pricing seems more reasonable and the email + SMS combo looks solid. A few people on here mentioned it's easier to set up than Klaviyo. Wondering if there's a meaningful feature gap though or if that reputation is outdated. We're a small team (just me and one other person managing campaigns) so ease of use matters but we're not beginners. We can handle a learning curve if the features justify it. Budget is flexible but ideally staying under $300/month to start. Has anyone switched away from Mailchimp to any of these? What do you use?
Reddit8mo agoToolE-Commerce