Our good friends at MINT have been quietly pioneering the ‘infrastructure’ required for NBA basketball titans, The Chicago Bulls, and eCommerce powerhouse, Shopify, to join forces through the introduction of a NFT collection entitled “The Bulls Legacy Collection”. A high profile eCommerce moment eloquently summarised by Shopify President Harley Finkelstein on Twitter with "If you’ve spent 1 minute on the internet this year, you’ve seen a lot about NFTs. @Shopify we are making it easier for our merchants to sell NFTs directly through their stores, with one of the first being the @ChicagoBulls NFT store. https://nft.bulls.com.”
Offering NFTs speaks to the values of Shopify, the NBA and the Chicago Bulls, in that they encourage creativity and future-thinking. Shopify proudly stands by the tenant of “making commerce creative” and the Chicago Bull’s Head of Digital, Dan Moriarty, recently proclaimed to Tech Crunch that the NFT opportunity “...gives teams permission to kind of go and experiment and innovate”. This is certainly true, in that merchants, developers and artists themselves are able to expand into new territories of creativity, whether that be by product type, the technology behind NFT accessibility or the creation of meaningful digital artworks.
The success of the venture has been astounding, with the 25-30 second video reels selling out in under 90 seconds on day one. Each drop features tiers of limited artwork showing the heralded NBA Rings, animated to celebrate historical NBA Finals matchups. For passionate fans, this digital product extends their engagement with their favourite team — all through a stable and familiar eCommerce platform, which accepts conventional payments via debit and credit cards. In the words of Kaz Nejatian, Shopify’s VP of Merchant Services “We’re opening up a world where their fans feel meaningful connection to their brands, and where NFTs just increasingly become part of how we buy and sell online.”
At By Association Only we foster a culture of open-minded problem solving, so when MINT suggested collaborating on the development of a NFT focused app we jumped at the chance. Our contribution was technical, drawing on our 11 years of experience working with Shopify and collaborating closely with the MINT team to build the connector required to ‘plug’ NFT transactions into Shopify. Our innovation team revelled in the challenge to make the app as lightweight, fast and stable as possible, writing each line of code from the ground up to ensure complete efficiency and security when handling high volume NFT sales events.
Exploring and delivering such a high profile and successful NFT project has provided live experience in introducing this groundbreaking concept onto the Shopify platform. Our willingness to innovate is what sets us apart as the design-led Shopify Plus agency who are committed to serving our merchants with a competitive edge. A competitive edge that might just include NFTs in the not so distant future…
Please feel free to contact the By Association Only Sales Team on 01480 467 916 / info@byassociationonly.com for further information on Shopify Plus or to discuss your online store opportunities in more detail.
Credits MINT / Chicago Bulls Legacy Collection NFT / Tech Crunch / Coin Desk / NBC
Image Credits The Chicago Bulls / NBCSports.com / Twitter
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