What will Slate's Accessories Marketplace Portal be like?

[AZFox]

Imagine being tasked with building a Web Store portal site that sells parts and accessories for a specific company's vehicles.

Start with considering responsive design, meaning the site's User eXperience needs to automatically adapt so it works on any screen size or device.

It needs to work on small phones with low-res screens, whopper flagship phones with ridiculously high dots-per-inch screens, tablets with a similar range of screen attributes, low-res consumer laptops and chromebooks, high-res laptops, and all the way up to 5K desktop displays.

As an aside for the AI skeptics out there: I think this is an example where AI could really help. An agent could create Virtual Machines that render pages the way they'll appear on various platforms and show those to the developer(s) quickly so they can refine their code rapidly.​

​

That repetitive Site View task used to require a lot of time and expense.​

With that as just an example, what I'm trying to point out is this: Creating Slate's Web Store will be a monumental task!

I think Peter Faricy is well-suited (see what I did there?) to create and manage a digital development team that can pull it off, and I think that's a rare and specialized capability.

Mister Bright Side says: If they do it well, the Parts and Accessories Marketplace site will be maintainable and it'll generate lots of revenue with low maintenance burden for many years to come.

 

[sodamo]

Include the Maker?

 

[AZFox]

Include the Maker?

I'm sure a Marketplace site will work symbiotically with it, but what they need is have something different enough to build from scratch.

The maker is a marketing tool. What they need is a full-on e-commerce engine.

 

[IamSpotted]

You don’t actually need virtual machines to test different platforms. You can use each platform’s developer kit to see how the app behaves. From a development perspective, the bigger challenge is making sure a web app scales properly on mobile devices.

That said, my main concern is security. Any marketplace or app they set up could be vulnerable to things like IDOR, SQL injection, or other common exploits. With a cybersecurity background, I’m focused more on whether the underlying APIs and databases are protected than on whether the UI works.

I do agree, though, that creating it is a huge task. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been working on it behind the scenes. It’s definitely not something they would have waited to start until now, especially with vehicles scheduled for delivery by the end of the year.

 

[AZFox]

That said, my main concern is security. Any marketplace or app they set up could be vulnerable to things like IDOR, SQL injection, or other common exploits. With a cybersecurity background, I’m focused more on whether the underlying APIs and databases are protected than on whether the UI works.

In a general sense, security needs to be designed in as a high priority from the very beginning of a project like that.

I doubt the maker site was developed to have extreme security from the very beginning because it doesn't need high security to do what it does.

 

[tgpii]

You don’t actually need virtual machines to test different platforms. You can use each platform’s developer kit to see how the app behaves. From a development perspective, the bigger challenge is making sure a web app scales properly on mobile devices.

That said, my main concern is security. Any marketplace or app they set up could be vulnerable to things like IDOR, SQL injection, or other common exploits. With a cybersecurity background, I’m focused more on whether the underlying APIs and databases are protected than on whether the UI works.

I do agree, though, that creating it is a huge task. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been working on it behind the scenes. It’s definitely not something they would have waited to start until now, especially with vehicles scheduled for delivery by the end of the year.

I hope they just use amazon.

 

[KevinRS]

The maker may show prices, and feed your choices into the actual ecommerce site where you actually make your order. Part of the idea with the maker is that the version at launch will show the whole set of accessories available, both from Slate and 3rd party, and how they will look installed into/on the truck.

 

[RetiredOnPaper]

How involved will Amazon be, if at all, in the supply chain? What parts will be 3rd party? Will some of these be produced in Warsaw? Where will they be warehoused? And for me the big one. Will Slate go public?

 

[motorolas]

I hope they just use amazon.

I feel like this will be in the cards.
Slate focuses on a few items core items and fun items. And tie in Amazon for the rest.

They have partnerships with Hyundai and expanded to used cars (Hertz among one). And work with Ford for certified cars.

I don’t see this to be a stretch for Amazon to do the heavy lifting for accessories.
What I do fear is the “better” quality items will eventually get pushed down by SEO optimized generic accessory makers later down the line, like we see now for products.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

An AI will build it in a few hours (given the token budget and the appropriate service tier). My career as a software engineer is happily over, as the placement rate for new computer science grads has plummeted from more than 90% to under 20%, and still dropping. And salaries are down by 30%.

Seriously. A prompt engineer with the latest Anthropic paid tier can build a beautiful and functional accessories site in a day. In my retirement, just for grins, I've built apps in an hour that would have taken me weeks to months back in the early days. It keeps freaking me out how good it is.

And the crazy thing is that these tools get exponentially better with each release. And the releases are accellerating. You go from one release to another - the changes are mind blowing.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

And for me the big one. Will Slate go public?

You know they wants to

 

[KevinRS]

There is no indication that Amazon will be involved in the supply chain. The only tie to Amazon is some investors in common, significant investors, but not majority investors.
It is always possible Slate will fulfill accessory orders through Amazon, just like many other independent companies, where you order on the company's website, and the product is delivered next day because the company is paying for it to be stored at Amazon warehouses across the country.
Slate will also list 3rd party products, that depending on the company, could be coming direct from that company's warehouse, or again, through Amazon.

 

[AZFox]

It would be a mistake to outsource the Accessories Marketplace to Amazon, with the possible exception of using them for fulfillment (warehouse and ship) only if that's something Amazon would do.

 

[1yeliab_sufur1]

Imagine being tasked with building a Web Store portal site that sells parts and accessories for a specific company's vehicles.

Start with considering responsive design, meaning the site's User eXperience needs to automatically adapt so it works on any screen size or device.

It needs to work on small phones with low-res screens, whopper flagship phones with ridiculously high dots-per-inch screens, tablets with a similar range of screen attributes, low-res consumer laptops and chromebooks, high-res laptops, and all the way up to 5K desktop displays.

As an aside for the AI skeptics out there: I think this is an example where AI could really help. An agent could create Virtual Machines that render pages the way they'll appear on various platforms and show those to the developer(s) quickly so they can refine their code rapidly.​

​

That repetitive Site View task used to require a lot of time and expense.​

With that as just an example, what I'm trying to point out is this: Creating Slate's Web Store will be a monumental task!

I think Peter Faricy is well-suited (see what I did there?) to create and manage a digital development team that can pull it off, and I think that's a rare and specialized capability.

Mister Bright Side says: If they do it well, the Parts and Accessories Marketplace site will be maintainable and it'll generate lots of revenue with low maintenance burden for many years to come.

I'm betting it would be similar to the prusa app for the prusa printer at least i hope so or similar to etsy maybe

 

[KevinRS]

It would be a mistake to outsource the Accessories Marketplace to Amazon, with the possible exception of using them for fulfillment (warehouse and ship) only if that's something Amazon would do.

That is exactly what I envision as a possibility, for Slate and for 3rd parties. Each 3rd party with items on Slate could do things differently. Some may handle everything in house, while others use Amazon fulfillment exclusively, and everything in between, and other.