How to choose an NFT and token gating partner

First post in this series Introducing digital wallets and digital assetsespecially NFTs. In the second post, we detailed how Woo merchants can do it. Using NFTs for profitability and growth. In this post, we will help you choose the best NFT solution for your store.

As with our posts, How to choose a cryptocurrency payment partnerwe do not endorse any particular partner. Instead, we will explore what requirements are behind the use cases we covered last time and allow you, our dear Woo merchants, to make your own decisions depending on your use case, situation, and goals.

NFTs are small software programs that adhere to certain standards that allow them to interact with the blockchain on which they are deployed. This section is a bit technical, but Woo’s NFT partners (Verisart and boson protocol (as of this post), all do a great job of abstracting this complexity and helping you make good decisions about how to do things.

Here, we have combined many individual requirements into a high-level set that broadly represents the steps of an NFT project.

Design decisions range from highly technical (which chain to use, how to keep transactions cheap, where to store data) to more business-focused ( How many NFTs will you make available and what images will you use to make them attractive in users’ wallets?)

Partner solutions typically help you decide on things like:

• Have you ever needed or wanted to let your customers know that your experience uses NFTs? Perhaps your customers use SSL, cookies, or other technical terms when delivering their experiences? I don’t care that I’m using it. The same goes for NFTs. For some sellers, talking about technology makes sense, while for others it’s something to avoid.
• Is NFT free or paid? Does it have a static price, or does it use bonding curves, Dutch auctions, or other types of dynamic pricing?
• Whether to set royalties (i.e. request a % of secondary sales).
• Number of NFTs that will be available and minting schedule (dates, who can mint them, etc.).
• The number of NFTs each customer can purchase (or send).
• Whether NFTs represent physical assets, and if so, how the two are linked.
• Whether to make the NFT transferable or salable.

This step ends when the NFT software is deployed on a public blockchain and ready for use.

Once your NFT is ready, you need to get it into the hands of your prospects or customers (digital wallet). If your intended recipient doesn’t already have a digital wallet, that should be an important consideration. Some partners offer the ability to create a digital wallet for recipients, while others have different recommendations. How you distribute tokens depends on how you’ve designed the overall experience, but generally your customers will have three different experiences:

1. normal casting: The default way NFTs are distributed is for users to send cryptocurrencies to NFTs. smart contract Get an address and automatically receive your NFT. All of this is governed by NFT contracts. Minting by paying in fiat currency via credit card is also becoming possible.
   
2. AirDrop or “Claim Drop” Premint NFT:This method allows you to send NFTs or claim NFTs instead of asking people to complete a transaction. This is more effective if you want users to be able to get NFTs for free, or if your target audience is not technical and you want it to be as simple as possible.
3. lazy mint: In this experience, users do not receive their NFTs until they pay or claim them. This is useful in several scenarios. First, if you don’t know what the demand for your NFT will be, you can pre-sell your NFT and only mint it if there are enough orders to justify it. Secondly, it is a convenient way to comply with regulations. For example, if you have a two-week refund obligation for an EU customer, it’s much easier to issue a refund if you haven’t done anything on-chain yet.

Partner solutions may offer one or more of these methods. In any case, this step ends when you have a large number of customers or prospects with NFTs in their wallets.

Since NFTs are a somewhat abstract concept, we recommend that NFT holders be able to verify their NFTs. Savvy users can visualize their NFTs using native crypto tools such as wallets, blockchain explorers, and NFT marketplaces. For non-technical users, you need to think about how your NFT will appear within your overall experience design. It will likely appear in your “My Account” area (and will then be referenced within the purchase and checkout process, as described below). If NFTs are part of a community experience, you might want to think about how users can display their NFTs for others to see.

When considering potential NFT solutions, make sure the customer experience for receiving, viewing, and using NFTs meets your expectations.

There is no need to provide NFT utilities. All you need to do is turn it into a badge that your customers can proudly display. But it definitely leaves a lot of creativity open. among us Previous posts about NFTsWe’ve covered a number of use cases that can be built on top of NFTs. It’s important to ensure that the experience you’re building is supported by the solution you choose.

If you want your customers to be able to resell or transfer their NFTs, you may want to be able to manage and control them. It is possible to design NFTs so that they can only be sold or transferred through official marketplaces. This allows you to design that experience the way you want, including enforcing loyalty and ensuring future NFT buyers and recipients provide email addresses and personal information for marketing and compliance purposes. can.

Related to the immediate design areas considered in this series of posts, you should also consider:

• Designing lifecycle experiences: NFTs aren’t just for Christmas, they’re for life. When you sell or distribute NFTs, you are setting the expectation that “more is coming.” What does that “more” look like, and are you committed to performing against that expectation?
• marketing: Depending on your technology solution and experience design, you may (or may not) need to let your customers know that you are using NFTs. This should be factored into your marketing plan. Further leveraging NFTs opens up new marketing opportunities, especially from a community and partnership perspective. Can holders of other NFTs also access the TokenGate feature? Want to send your NFT to holders of a competitor’s NFT? Please let us know that you have done it and how it can be leveraged. What do you tell them?
• Customer communication and support: On-chain technologies like NFTs bring both new opportunities and challenges to customer communication and support. Your plan here will depend on the experience you’re creating and the technology you’re using. In some cases, you may not even have the email address or name of the NFT owner. How do we get in touch? What type of support can an NFT solution provider provide to support internal support functions?
• Analysis and insights: Generally, NFTs can be displayed on open public blockchains. So, in theory, you should know which addresses are storing NFTs, if/how/for how much they are being sold, and what other activities those wallets are actually performing. You can check if there are any. How does this information benefit your business? And how will you analyze and use it? How might your competitors, suppliers, and customers use it? ?

NFTs are a relatively new technology to most people (both sellers and customers), and that’s not to say it’s completely straightforward and simple, with a clear and reproducible playbook to follow. But on the other hand, it offers unique possibilities for creative and innovative brands to engage and co-create with prospects and customers.

We can’t wait to see what you build with Woo!

Dave is a visionary at the forefront of the Web3 revolution, currently leading the charge at Automattic. Originally from the UK, Dave is currently enjoying the sunshine and tranquility in Portugal. Dave shares his Web3 expertise through his role as an advisor at Adnode and past collaborations with WordProof, Grant for the Web, and founding venture Pragmatic. He also serves as co-chair of the BIMA Web3 Council.