How to validate your client has a book you want to deliver to him?
Hello Indi hackers,
I am starting a subscription box that send out a book or two each month along side gadgets and other stuff.
I need to find a way to validate that the client does not have the book I am sending him.
Also, there will be a landing page where the user subscribes to that box with some customization form like what genres the user reads.
How about emailing them next month's selection, and in the email, give them the option to say "I already have this book"?
Farez
Oh right I forgot to mention that the user should not know the content of the box before its delivered.
Unless you get an inventory of what they already own, you can't be expected to know if they have it or not (outside of what you have sent).
You may be sending them a gadget they already have. Do you also worry about that?
The very nature of a subscription box is that the recipient could possibly receive something they already have.
Oh! Hmm, that's a tricky one then :).
The idea for emailing next month's selection could still work but do it in a slightly different way. Send an email every month with 5 or so potential book and gadget options for customer to select if they already have them. Now they won't know exactly what is coming with the next shipment and you gather a lot more data with each email to help plan a few months ahead.
Maybe the real trick is making returns trivial - "ship it back in the same box and we'll send you a different one for free" or "put it in the mail within 3 days and we'll refund the book and the shipping price" kinda thing. It may be enough to make the failure case cheap for the customer in the beginning.
I would wait until it's a real problem before you introduce a technical solution. If you don't know the landscape of the problem (how many people experience it, how they feel about it, what they find frustrating about it), then picking any solution can be hit-or-miss.
Very good point, maybe not dealing with this very early is the best option. Instead wait for the problem and monitor how much it happens before coming up with a solution.
If you're going to be recommending generally new/recently released books, then it might be sufficient to out what that customer has read recently in their favourite genres. I'd imagine that it could avoid 60% of clashes.
Are you expecting your customers to be already enthusiastic readers, or aiming to help people to "get into reading"?
nice approach @cjpete, maybe I could rely on newly released books more. This way I can narrow down the choices. I will slip in a few older books from time to time.
I'm targeting committed readers mainly for now, and will be making campaigns down the road for casual readers or even non readers.