The Product Hunt Shop is Now Open
Product Hunt isn’t just for window shopping — every day people try, download, and buy things from the site. We recently asked the community if they’ve purchased something they discovered through Product Hunt. Nearly 50% of them recalled buying something, from a $2.99 theSkimm monthly subscription to a $299 Autonomous Desk.
Today we launched the Product Hunt Shop, to make it easier for people to buy the the things they discover and love.
Why we built it
Like most things we build, the inspiration came from the community.
We introduced an open API after several eager developers started scraping the site to build their own Product Hunt-powered apps.
We built Collections when we saw people bookmarking and saving their favorite discoveries in lists using third party tools.
We turned comments into tweetable images (code name: ShareMeow!) after watching people screenshot and share Product Hunt discussions on Twitter.
Much of our roadmap has been focused on reducing friction of an existing behavior. By making it easier for people to do things they’re already doing, we can build a better Product Hunt.
Now we’re making it easier for people to buy cool things discovered on the site and help makers like JC, get their product in the hands of customers:
Working with Makers
As we thought about who would be interested in working with us to introduce commerce to Product Hunt, General Electric emerged as a fantastic partner and embraced the opportunity. Like us, GE seeks to encourage new ideas. We both have communities of makers and technologists that love to introduce and geek out on new products. Case in point, this morning Dr. Todd Anderson, who leads a team of researchers that apply the use of super materials to jet engineers, will be on Product Hunt answering questions about the inspiration between the design of the umbrella.
Their commitment to innovation, science and the people who create new and interesting things is one of the reasons we believed they would make a great partner.
We also wanted to be able to showcase a breadth of partners, with different products, at different price points, from companies of varying sizes. Our other awesome launch day partners: eero, Blockhead, Electric Objects, and Oristand.
Add your product to the Shop
We’re onboarding more makers of awesome products in the coming weeks. If you’re interested in selling yours on Product Hunt, let us know.
In the meantime, check out the Shop and feel free to send your feedback to shop@producthunt.com or on Twitter at @ProductHunt. 😊
P.S. To start we’re only able to sell and ship within the U.S. (it gets more complicated once we have to report taxes in numerous countries) which we know is a bummer to the 50% of our community that lives outside the states. Our goal is to have our shopping experience mirror the diversity of the community. Stay tuned. 👊