LassoPay is an innovative Shopify app designed to transform how small businesses conduct transactions on Instagram. This app streamlines the purchasing process by enabling users to complete transactions with a single comment on a LassoPay enabled Instagram post.
In development, the main challenge we faced was integrating the numerous complex systems necessary for a successful transaction. This included linking Instagram to Shopify merchants' accounts, ensuring secure payment processing through Stripe, and delivering a confirmation message to the user’s mobile number. The backend complexities were significant, but essential due to some obstacles we faced with permissions and restrictions from Meta and Shopify.
Our approach to refinement was heavily reliant on beta testing and user feedback. We engaged a small group of users to test the app's functionality, collecting their insights and experiences. This feedback was crucial for iterative improvements, helping us refine the onboarding flows and address any operational issues.
The idea behind LassoPay was to streamline the customer journey by eliminating the usual hurdles associated with online transactions—navigating through a lengthy checkout process with multiple forms. We essentially turned the checkout process on its head, and included it as a one-time experience during the customer’s onboarding.
The onboarding process involved attaching your credit card and shipping address to your Instagram account. Once the user was set up, they could complete purchases by commenting on any LassoPay enabled Instagram post. This innovative approach not only delivered on user convenience, but did so without sacrificing any efficiencies in tracking sales statistics for merchants.
LassoPay was positioned to turn the industry on its head. Every design choice was a response to our user's needs—making their Instagram shopping experience as effortless and magical as possible.
Businesses using LassoPay would need to have a Shopify merchant account, and use the LassoPay merchant app. From the app’s dashboard, they import their products and assign Lasso shortcodes to each individual product.
When the merchant posts a product image and inserts the product’s shortcode in the IG caption, users could purchase that product with a single comment. Within sixty seconds they would have a confirmation text sent to their phones. Responding to which could allow you to cancel the order. We had a working version built out and this functionality worked flawlessly. It was magical.
We also offered specific features for merchants which allowed them to track and credit sales to different affiliates. Instead of traditional affiliate links, merchants could provide influencers with Lasso shortcodes. These shortcodes allowed merchants to track purchases made with LassoPay and which influencers were generating those purchases.
This allowed for a seamless and effortless way for merchants to identify their strongest influencer affiliates, and provided both parties with their own respective breakdown of revenue, orders, and attributions.
While the product worked, the back-end was a mess of technical and permission-based integrations. There were so many dependency issues, that if one broke it would have been a nightmare to rectify for the customer. We simply weren’t able to get the product into a stable enough state to push a commercialized launch.
Due to this lack of stability with purchases, the project took a strategic pivot—we considered shifting our focus to a wish-list app concept, but this was the beginning of the end of LassoPay. While it was an exciting project to launch and our optimism carried us for a while, our three-man team had to bow out to the reality that there were too many external obstacles working against us in our efforts to provide a stable platform for customers.
