My ECommerce Site Killed My First Shopper on Day 1

24 hours ago my Unity-built Amazon-affiliate shopping site www.3dwebmall.com went live.

Since IndieHackers is a zero-BS forum for fellow webtrepreneurs, here’s what a small indie zero-budget launch looks like: 8 views on Google Analytics (2 of which were me).

I’ve heard of soft launches, but calling this a gentle lift is hyperbole.

As the evening closed with zero sales, I implored my wonderful and faithful girlfriend (i.e. the captive audience in my home) to checkout the site. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

Movement in the ‘shopping game’ is done with WASD keys, as in any first person shooter computer game. Somehow people like her exist who have never played a computer game. Maybe I need to target gamers? I didn’t even consider people wouldn’t be familiar with settings that after 7 long years of being a teenager is one of my primary reflexes.

Once she settled into the movements and made her way down the stairs to the ground level and began exploring. I settled back into my seat as she shopped, curious to what she’d buy. The next words out of her mouth are, “I think I’m dead.”

Shit. I knew instantly what happened. There’s two floating platforms that act as elevators, moving up and down between floors. Hop on, and you’ll get a ride up to more products. Unless you’re directly underneath the platform as it’s coming down. Then, due to the game’s incomplete knowledge of physics, the player pushed through the floor and sent into freefall. The blue sky & clouds background wrapper gives the glitch an afterlife feel.

So there I was, watching my first customer die.

After a refresh, she was alive again (“I guess I only have one life”, she commented) - and after clicking on the case of Red Bulls, successfully added the item to the cart and purchased. Instantly the item (and the cool 5% commission) showed up in my Amazon Affiliate account.

Checkout www.3dwebmall.com, have fun, experiment, buy something, and whatever you do, try not to die.