Used item store made with Pory.io & Airtable

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SparkJoy Store is an online marketplace for used items. The name was inspired by Marie Kondo's strategy "KonMari".

This was part of our monthly No-Code Challenge that we have conducted in No-Code Malaysia.

1. The Idea

SparkJoy Store is an online marketplace for used items. The name was inspired by Marie Kondo's #KonMari.

Kondo's strategy, known as KonMari, requires declutterers to place all similar items (like books or clothes) on the floor and then touch them one by one. If an item doesn't “spark joy,” when it's touched, the person should thank it for being a part of his life, and then donate or trash it.

Yup, donate it or sell it in our store. As for now, we don't charge any cents. Just give feedbacks and share them with your friends. (Note: Only for Malaysian)

It's supposed to be my own commitment to declutter our home. I still have some items from my college-years buried inside some boxes in my storeroom. And I think now is the right time to clear them.

2. Stack Used

For a quick build, after getting to know Pory.io for their ready-made MVP templates and Airtable as their database; it's just the right tool for this challenge.

And best of all, the newly added Airtable Automation. 3-in-1 best combo stack!

Pory.io

I chose the most relevant template for the store, which is the Marketplace.

It already has the database needed for an online store; Product Name, Seller Name, Pricing, Buy button etc which synced from the Airtable.

Design-wise; I only changed the title, added descriptions and picked the nice but relevant background images from Pexels.

Which is available in the Editor together with other popular options like Unsplash.

Airtable

Airtable tables may look familiar like any other spreadsheet software.

The closest to this stack is the Glide and Google Sheets combo.

Most of the time, the data can be either be filled directly into the table or from a form submitted by the users.

For this project, I decided to do the latter.

Airtable Automation

Words cannot describe how happy I was when Airtable introduced their Airtable Automation.

Thanks to the internal syncing, the workflows are a breeze. Better than using 3rd party automation app.

From sending emails when new records created, getting alerts to Slack channel or setting a scheduled post to Social Media like Twitter and Facebook. No more Zap, Hook, This and That!🙃

3. Product Flow - User Stories

I used Notion for almost everything. It's like my second brain. More about it later.

Here, I did the flow mapping on Notion's Board (Kanban) with Seller and Buyer for the User Stories.

All the cards represent the steps taken by each user (from top to bottom).

4. The Website

🚀

Preview the website live: SparkJoy Store🦓

1) Seller

Any seller can post their items by clicking the "Let go an item" button. And submit the form.

The Admin or Store Owner will receive an email and will then decide to approve or decline (will be done manually in Airtable).

2) Buyer

A potential buyer will scroll over the listing and click on any items to see details.

To enquire to buy, the buyer will need to click on the Buy button and a form will pop up.

They will then need to submit the form and an email will be sent to the seller for their next action.

3) Closing the deal

As the seller concluded the sales with the buyer, they will need to fill up the closure form that was included in the previous notification email (Enquiry).

This will automatically trigger the automation to remove the item from the store as shown above.

5. The Automation

It is hard to explain each of the automations in the image above.

Just refer to the logic that was taken from the 3. Product Flow and the 4. The Website sections.

I will do a video to talk more about Airtable Automations, but that's probably for another day or project.

6. The Challenges & Takeaways

I started building on Monday Nov 2, 2020 and basically completed the whole thing the next day. Polishing it from Wednesday onwards until Nov 11, 2020.

Setting it up with Pory.io and Airtable is easy. The hard work only starts when I delved into the Automation. As a challenge to myself, I went ahead to automate almost anything that I could think of. And it was fun indeed. Airtable Automation Rocks!🤘🏻

But, it might mean that I'm setting up to a tedious process for my users.

Three forms for putting an item into the store, enquiring to buy from the store and clearing the item from the store.

But that's what testing is for. Time will tell awaiting the feedback from the users.